Francis Trevelyan Buckland

Francis Trevelyan Buckland (17 December, 1826 – 19 December, 1880), was an English surgeon, zoologist, popular author and natural historian. He was the son of William Buckland, the noted geologist and palaeontologist.

Life

Frank Buckland was born and brought up at Oxford, where his father was a Canon of Christ Church. After education by his mother, he went, at eight and a half, to a boarding school in Cotterstock, Northamptonshire. From 1837-9 he went to a preparatory school in Laleham, near Chertsey. This was run by his uncle, John Buckland, who, unfortunately for Frank, was a brutal master who flogged his pupils quite excessively. [This, left out of the Victorian biography, was dug up from Wm. Buckland's letters by Burgess G.H.O. 1967. "The curious world of Frank Buckland". Baker, London. p16-17.] Relief came with a scholarship to Winchester College, a school with an unbroken history of six hundred years. Here Frank Buckland was taught by the Second Master, Charles Wordsworth, who sent letters of praise to Frank's father. Winchester had a harsh regime, but was much preferable to his previous school. Frank was not a first-rate scholar, but managed to gain entrance to Christ Church, Oxford after failing to get a scholarship to the smaller Corpus Christi.

Frank studied at Christ Church from 1844-48, obtaining the BA at the second attempt. At once he travelled to London to begin training in surgery. His father had the advice of Richard Owen and Sir Benjamin Brodie, Brodie personally escorted Frank to St. George's Hospital and enrolled him as a sudent under Mr. Caesar Hawkins FRS, Surgeon to the hospital.

Buckland had a liaison with a woman of humble birth, Hannah Papps, who bore him a son in 1851. They married in 1863, but the son died early.

Buckland's early death was presaged by lung haemorrhages, which might suggest tuberculosis or perhaps lung cancer. His death certificate is, as so often in those days, unhelpful. He is buried in Brompton Cemetery, London. [http://www.brompton.org/Residents.htm]

Career

So Frank studied surgery at St George's Hospital. A visit to Paris in 1849 gave him a chance of comparing their methods with those in London. In London most of the nurses were illiterate; one who claimed to read was tested with a label reading "This lotion to be applied externally only". The nurse interpreted it as "Two spoonfuls to be taken four times a day". [Burgess G.H.O. 1967. "op cit" p48.]

Buckland made MRCS in 1851. He was appointed Assistant Surgeon (= house-surgeon) at St George's, 1852. A vivid word-portrait was written by a surgical colleague, Charles Lloyd::"Four and a half feet in height and rather more in breadth – what he measured round the chest is not known to mortal man. His chief passion was surgery – elderly maidens called their cats indoors as he passed by and young mothers who lived in the neighbourhood gave their nurses more than ordinarily strict injunctions as to their babies. To a lover of natural history it was a pleasant sight to see him at dinner with a chicken before him... and see how, undeterred by foolish prejudices, he devoured the brain." [Burgess G.H.O. 1967. "op cit" p59]

The Life Guards

Frank was elected to the Athenaeum Club in February 1954, and later that year was gazetted as Assistant Surgeon to the Second Life Guards. This appointment that left him plenty of time for his growing interest in natural history, since the Household Cavalry were not deployed abroad from the Battle of Waterloo (1815) until the Battle of Tel-el-Kabir in 1882. Buckland held the appointment until 1863.

Natural history and zoöphagy

Buckland gradually gave up surgery, and increasingly devoted himself to natural history. He made a good income as a writer for "The Field" and other periodicals and from the sale of popular books, and he was much in demand as a lecturer and speaker.

Buckland was a pioneer of zoöphagy: his favourite research was eating the animal kingdom. This habit he learnt from his father, whose residence, the Deanery, offered such rare delights as mice in batter, squirrel pie, horse's tongue and ostrich. After the 'Eland Dinner' in 1859 at the London Tavern, organised by Richard Owen, Buckland set up the Acclimatization Society to further the search for new food. In 1862 100 guests at Willis' Rooms sampled Japanese Sea slug (= sea cucumber, probably), kangaroo, guan, curassow and Honduras turkey. This was really quite a modest menu, though Buckland had his eye on Capybara for the future. Buckland's home, 37 Albany Sreet, London, was famous for its menagery and its varied menus. [Barber, Lynn 1980. "The heyday of natural history 1820–1870". Cape, London. Chapter 10: The pioneer of zoophagy.]

His writing was sometimes slapdash, but always vivid and racy, and made natural history attractive to the mass readership. This is an example::"On Tuesday evening, at 5pm, Messrs Grove, of Bond Street, sent word that they had a very fine sturgeon on their slab. Of course, I went down at once to see it... The fish measured 9 feet in length [nearly three metres] . I wanted to make a cast of the fellow... and they offered me the fish "for the night": he must be back in the shop the next morning by 10 am... [various adventures follow] I was determined to get him into the kitchen somehow; so, tying a rope to his tail, I let him slide down the stone stairs by his own weight. He started all right, but 'getting way' on him, I could hold the rope no more, and away he went sliding headlong down the stairs, like an avalanche down Mont Blanc... he smashed the door open... and slid right into the kitchen... till at last he brought himself to an anchor under the kitchen table. This sudden and unexpected appearance of the armour-clad sea monster, bursting open the door... instantly created a sensation. The cook screamed, the house-maid fainted, the cat jumped on the dresser, the dog retreated behind the copper and barked, the monkeys went mad with fright, and the sedate parrot has never spoken a word since." [Buckland F.C. How we cast the large Sturgeon. "Land & Water", vol 3, 27th April 1867; retold in Barber L. 1980. "The heyday of natural history 1820–1870". Cape, London. p149-50 [version here abbreviated] ]

An enthusiastic lover of natural history, he became a popular author. He wrote "Fish Hatching" (1863), "Curiosities of Natural History" (4 vols. 1857-72), "Log Book of a Fisherman and Zoologist" (1876) and "Natural History of British Fishes" (1881). He also founded and edited the periodical "Land and Water". He was appointed Inspector of Salmon Fisheries in 1867, and retained this post for the rest of his life. In this role he was extremely energetic, and made good use of his talent for publicity. He served on various commissions, experimented with fish hatcheries, and developed an Economic Fish Museum.

Though observant, he was not always strictly scientific in his methods and modes of expression. All the same, Darwin used some of his material from "Land and Water" in the "Descent of Man", an honour which Buckland did not appreciate, since he was an opponent of Darwinism. But Frank was no theoretician: his life was lived on the practical side of natural history.

References