Later Life
In 1892 Galpin was transferred to Queenstown, where he was to remain until his retirement in 1917. By now his herbarium specimens had grown to about 1500 in number. He made extensive collecting trips to mountains in the Eastern Cape, including Great Winterberg, Katberg, Stormberg and Andriesberg. In 1904 his wife accompanied him on a trip to the Basutoland border where they collected around Ben MacDhui and Satsannasberg. In 1897 he set out on a trip from Port Elizabeth to Humansdorp, Knysna, George, Riversdale, Swellendam and Caledon districts, ending in Cape Town. Here he spent some time at the Bolus Herbarium. In 1905 he visited Rhodesia with the British Association, collecting at the Victoria Falls and the Matopos.
In 1907, in the company of Prof. HHW Pearson, he undertook a trip to South West Africa to study Welwitschia, making stops at Port Nolloth, Lüderitz Bay, Swakopmund, Welwitsch Station and following the Swakop River to Haikamkab. In 1910 he and his wife departed Lourenço Marques for Kenya and Uganda, collecting in the Aberdare Mountains and returning with a new species of tree Lobelia.
From 1913 on he added few specimens to his collection, which even so numbered about 16,000 by 1916 when he donated the entire collection to the National Herbarium in Pretoria.
In 1917 he retired to his farm Mosdene on the Springbok Flats near Naboomspruit north of Pretoria. Here he became inspired to start collecting again. Following the lead of Dr. I.B. Pole Evans, he started an intensive botanical study of the countryside surrounding his farm. Despite failing eyesight, he was taught to drive by his son, and together they set out on a trip through the Transkei and the Eastern Cape. His wife suffered a fatal heart attack in Durban in 1933 while he was on an expedition in the mountains of the eastern Transvaal.
He was a life member of the Linnean Society and joined the S. Afr. Assoc. for the Adv. of Science a year after its founding. Vol. 13 of Flowering Plants of South Africa was dedicated to him, and the University of South Africa conferred an honorary doctorate on him.
Read more about this topic: Ernest Edward Galpin
Famous quotes containing the word life:
“your bones,
round rulers, round nudgers, round poles,
numb nubkins, the sword of sugar.
I feel the skull, Mr. Skeleton, living its
own life in its own skin.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“When you realize how hard it is to know the truth about yourself, you understand that even the most exhaustive and well-meaning autobiography, determined to tell the truth, represents, at best, a guess. There have been times in my life when I felt incredibly happy. Life was full. I seemed productive. Then I thought,”Am I really happy or am I merely masking a deep depression with frantic activity?” If I don’t know such basic things about myself, who does?”
—Phyllis Rose (b. 1942)