Naturalists and Visitors - Gower - page 21

BytheearlytwentiethcenturythefocusoftheSocietyhadmovedawayfromnaturalhistory,butthere
was still felt to be a need for an organisation devoted to natural history. In June 1906 therefore a group
of local naturalists formed the Swansea Field Naturalists' Society, its area of interest being defined as the
15 mile radius from Swansea castle. As a separate organisation it lasted for 14 years until in 1920 the
Scientific Society asked to merge with the Naturalists as 'they had been hit much worse by the war', that
is, most of their members had been killed in the First World War and they were no longer a viable organ-
isation. Despite some initial resistance from the naturalists the two organisations merged and became the
SwanseaScientific andFieldNaturalists' Society.TheSocietyorganiseditselfintofourbranches,botany,
zoology,geologyandarchaeology,thelatterindeferencetotheremainingmembersoftheScientificSoci-
ety.By1925Gowerhadbeenfairlywellcoveredbybothorganisationsandalargeamountofinformation
on the natural history of Gower resides in the proceedings of the two organisations. A thorough analysis
of the contents of their journals is long overdue.
A Flora of Glamorganshire by H. J. Riddelsdell appeared in 1907 as an 88-page supplement to the
Journal of Botany. He divided the county into nine districts, including Gower, basing his division on the
drainage areas of the principal rivers rather than geological divisions. Riddelsdell continued to contribute
many records to the journal after the publication of his county flora, including, in 1911, a paper on the
flora of Worms Head. By coincidence there were actually two floras of Glamorgan published in 1907, the
second by A. H. Trow, Professor of Botany at Cardiff. Perhaps a combined effort would have been more
effective. The two men certainly knew each other, as Riddelsdell was one of the chief recorders for the
volume edited by Trow, contributing 482 records, many of them from Gower.
OurknowledgeoftheGowerinsectfaunaatthistimewouldhavebeenverypoorifitwerenotforthe
contributionofoneman,HenryMortimerHallett,whobegantostudytheaculeates(bees,waspsandants)
of Glamorgan (and, to a lesser extent, Monmouthshire) in 1909. For the next 26 years, until he moved to
Herefordshire in 1935, he collected extensively in east Glamorgan and made frequent collecting trips to
the west of the county. His vice-county compilation of Glamorgan in 1928 provides an invaluable insight
into the state of the aculeate fauna of South Wales in the first half of the twentieth century. Unfortunately,
hedidnotpublishhisreviewoftheWelshfauna, The Hymenoptera Aculeata of Wales ,beforehisdeathin
1958, although he donated the manuscript to the National Museum of Wales, where it may be consulted
in the Department of Zoology.
A substantial advance in bird recording was made in 1889 when the Reverend Digby S. W. Nicholl's
notes on the birds of Glamorgan were published. This was the first attempt at a countywide avifauna for
Glamorgan; it was inspired by one published earlier for Somerset and included 218 species. In the same
year Harry Rowland Wakefield came to Swansea as Chief Science Demonstrator for the Swansea School
Board. A founder member of the Scientific and Field Naturalists' Society, he became life president in
1931. He was a keen naturalist with a particular interest in beetles and molluscs, recording in particular
1,083 species of beetle, many of these in Gower. Other conchologists active in the area included John le
Brockton Tomlin (1864-1954), who accumulated one of the world's major collections of shells, leaving
over 200,000 specimens to the National Museum of Wales. He was also interested in beetles and left a
collection of 82,000 of these as well. Collecting specimens on this scale can no longer be condoned, but
thecollections nowformanimportant reference source.Conservation wasnot,however,anissueinthose
days. Tomlin was also a close friend of Wakefield and they had many joint excursions to find beetles in
Gower.
In 1948 J. E. Lousley, the outstanding field botanist of his generation, visited the Gower cliffs with
Miss E. Vachell and Mr D. McClintock for the purpose of checking the section on Gower for his New
Naturalist volume Wild Flowers of Chalk and Limestone (1950). In the topic he notes that: