Edward Blyth - Early Life and Work

Early Life and Work

Blyth was the son of a clothier. His father died in 1820 and his mother sent him to Dr. Fennell's school in Wimbledon. Here he took an interest in reading but was often to be found spending time in the woods nearby. Leaving school in 1825, he went to study chemistry, at the suggestion of Dr. Fennell, in London under Dr. Keating at St. Paul's churchyard. He did not find the teaching satisfactory and began to work as a pharmacist in Tooting, but quit in 1837 to try his luck as an author and editor. He was offered the position of curator at the museum of the Asiatic Society of Bengal in 1841. He was so poor that he needed an advance of £100 (pounds) to make the trip to Calcutta. In India, Blyth was poorly paid (the Asiatic Society did not expect to find a European curator for the salary that they could offer), with a salary of 300 pounds per year (which was unchanged for twenty years), and a house allowance of 4 pounds per month. He married in 1854, and tried to supplement his income by writing under a pseudonym for the Indian Sporting Review and traded live animals between India and Britain to wealthy collectors in both countries. In this venture he sought the collaboration of eminent people such as Charles Darwin and John Gould, both of whom declined these offers.

Although a curator of a museum with many responsibilities, he contributed mainly to ornithology, often forsaking other areas of work. In 1847, his employers were unhappy at his failure to produce a catalogue of the museum. Some Asiatic Society factions opposed Blyth. He complained to Richard Owen in 1848:

They intrigue in every way to get rid of me; accuse me of being an Ornithologist, and that the society did not want an ornithologist...I could astonish you by various statements of what I have to put up with but forbear. —quoted in Brandon-Jones, 1997

He also found George Robert Gray, curator at the British Museum uncooperative in helping him with his ornithological research far away in India. He complained to the trustees of the museum but it was dismissed with several character references in favour of Gray including Charles Darwin.

His work on ornithology led him to be recognized as the father of Indian ornithology a title later transferred to Allan Octavian Hume.

Mr. Blyth, who is rightly called the Father of Indian Ornithology, was by far the most important contributor to our knowledge of the Birds of India. As the head of the Asiatic Society's Museum, by intercourse and correspondence, formed a large collection for the Society, and enriched the pages of the Society's Journal with the results of his study. Thus he did more for the study of the birds of India than all previous writers. There can be no work on Indian Ornithology without reference to his voluminous contributions. ... —James Murray

He married a widow, Mrs. Hodges (born Sutton) who had moved to India, in 1854. She however died in December 1857, a shock which led to his health deteriorating from then on.