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Charles George Nurse (1862 Barnham - 5 November 1933 was an English military officer, naturalist, ornithologist and entomologist.

Charles George Nurse was one of many British military officers who made significant contributions to knowledge of the Natural history of India.

Military Career

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Charles George Nurse was educated at King Edward VI School in Bury, St. Edmunds, then at the Royal Military Academy. A linguist with a sound knowledge of Russian and several Oriental languages he rapidly advanced in his chosen career.

  • 22 January 1881 Commissioned into the Royal Irish Fusiliers as a 2nd Lieutenant and advanced to Lieutenant in July the same year. *1881-1884 Served with the regiment in India as an Interpreter and Station Staff Officer, Kolapore.
  • 1884 served with the 2nd Battalion Royal Irish Fusiliers in the Sudan Expedition seeing action at the battles of El-Teb and Tamai.
  • December 1884 Seconded to the [Indian Staff Corps|Indian Staff Corps]]
  • March 1885 Appointed to the Bombay Staff Corps
  • 1890 served with the Zaila Field Force [1] in Somalia
  • January 1892 Promoted to Captain in the Indian Staff Corps
  • January 1901 Promoted to Major Indian Staff Corps
  • January 1907 Promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel in the 113th Infantry
  • 23 January 1909 (then commander of the [[33rd Punjabis|33rd Punjabi Regiment) retired from the from the Indian Army
  • 12 May 1915 re-appointed from retirement and attached to the 3rd Battalion Bedfordshire Regiment

in Flanders

Natural history

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Works

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Partial and intended to illustrate the diversity of Nurse's natural history interests.

  • Nurse, C. G. 1899.Food of the Indian Grey Shrike. Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society. XII (3): 572
  • Nurse, C. G. 1899. Birds flying against window-panes. Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society. XII(3): 572 WRONG?
  • Nurse, C.G. 1901. Sport and natural history in northern Gujarat. Vol. 13(3): 337-342.
  • Nurse, C. G. 1902. Sandgrouse in northern Gujarat. Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society. XIV(2): 387–388
  • Nurse, C. G. 1902. Occurrence of the Red-breasted Merganser (Merganser serrator) near Quetta. Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society. XIV(2): 400–401
  • Nurse, C. G. 1902. Unusual abundance of Sandgrouse at Deesa. Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society. XIV(1): 172–173
  • Nurse, C. G. 1902. Merops apiaster breeding in Baluchistan. Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society. XIV(3): 627
  • Nurse, C. G. 1903. The enemies of butterflies. Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society. XV(2): 349–350
  • Nurse, C. G. 1903. On new Indian aculeate Hymenoptera. Annals & Magazine of the Natural History (7)11: 393-403, 511-526, 529-549.
  • Nurse, C. G. 1903. Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society XV: +360+.??? NB NB
  • Nurse,C. G 1904 .Occurrence of the Common Indian Bee-eater Merops viridis in Baluchistan. Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society. 15 (3): 530–531.
  • Nurse, C.G. 1904. New species of Indian Hymenoptera. Apidae. Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society 15(4): 557-585.
  • Nurse, C. G. 1904. Occurrence of the Common Indian Bee-eater (Merops viridis) in Baluchistan. Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society. XV (3): 530–531 CHECK
  • Nurse,C . G. 1906. Food of Monopis rusticella Entomologist 9 :160.
  • Nurse, C. G. 1910. Notes regarding the breeding of Cheilosia grossa. Entomologist 43: 313-314.


Charles George Nurse (1862 Barnham - 5 November 1933 was an English military officer, naturalist ornithologist and entomologist.

References

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  • Obit. Entomologist's monthly magazine, Volume 70 1934
  • Jivanayakam Cyril Daniel and Baljit Singh Natural History and the Indian Army OUP India


http://www.nhsn.ncl.ac.uk/about-history.php

Hewitson, William Chapman (1806–1878), naturalist, was born in Percy Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, on 9 January 1806, the second son of Middleton Hewitson (d. 1845). His early education began at Kirkby Stephen, and was completed at York, where he was articled to John Tuke, a land surveyor. About 1828 or 1829, he returned to Newcastle to pursue his career.

Hewitson was devoted to the study of natural history, a subject for which he had developed a taste during childhood. His friends included a number of like-minded natural history enthusiasts such as the marine zoologist Albany Hancock (and his brother, John), the zoologist Joshua Alder, and the geologist William Hutton. With his fellow students, Hewitson founded a society for the study of natural history (the Natural History Society of Northumberland, Durham and Newcastle upon Tyne), which first met on 19 August 1829. He was a member of the society's committee and honorary curator of its entomological department.

In early life, Hewitson had formed collections of British coleoptera and lepidoptera; he then devoted attention for some years to the study of birds' eggs. In 1831 he began his work British Oology (1833–42), and in 1832 he undertook a journey to the Shetland Islands, and in 1833 went on an expedition to Norway to discover the breeding places of some migratory species. He was accompanied on this trip by his friends John Hancock and Benjamin Johnson, with the aim of gathering plants, birds, and insects. During their visit to the Arctic circle, they were forced by the harshness of their circumstances, to live on the birds they shot. Hewitson's diary of this expedition was used for pieces on ornithology which appeared in Sir William Jardine's Magazine of Zoology.

Hewitson moved from Newcastle to Bristol in 1840, where he was employed under George Stephenson on the railway between Bristol and Exeter, as a surveyor. However, by the end of April 1845, two uncles and his father had died, leaving him as their heir, and considerably wealthy. He took up residence at Hampstead, and devoted his life to scientific research, his poor health also playing a role in his decision to give up business.

From about this time, Hewitson's attention became focused again on lepidoptera. He travelled with his friend John Hancock to Switzerland and the Alps, where he gathered a fine series of diurnal lepidoptera. He bought specimens from travellers and naturalists all over the globe, whose expenses he often paid, forming in the process what was probably the most complete collection of diurnal lepidoptera of his time. He published The Genera of Diurnal Lepidoptera in conjunction with the entomologist Edward Doubleday (1846–52), followed by Illustrations of Diurnal Lepidoptera (1863–78). He also wrote on the same subject in a number of journals. His other best-known works include the Illustrations of New Species of Exotic Butterflies (1851–76) and his Descriptions of some New Species of Lycaenidae (1868). Hewitson was also accomplished as an artist and draughtsman, and as a pictorial describer of butterflies and birds' eggs, he was considered unrivalled.

About 1848 Hewitson married, but his wife died soon after. They had no children. In the same year he purchased part of Oatlands Park, Surrey, where he lived for thirty years, in a house designed for him by the architect John Dobson. Having joined the Entomological Society in 1846, he also became a member of the Zoological Society (1859) and the Linnean Society (1862).

When Hewitson died on 28 May 1878 at Oatlands, there was no heir to his fortune. He made a bequest of £10,000 to the Newcastle Infirmary, and left his library of works on natural history, with a legacy of £3000, to the Natural History Society of Northumberland, Durham and Newcastle. He also left a large sum to the Müller Institute, Bristol. The rest of his fortune he bequeathed to various charities, and £20,000 in legacies was divided among fifty-eight of his friends. His estate at Oatlands was bequeathed to his closest friend, John Hancock, while to the British Museum was left his butterfly collection, some pictures, and watercolours, in addition to his stuffed birds. He was buried at Walton-on-Thames.

Yolanda Foote Sources The Entomologist, 11 (1878), 166 · private information (1891) · Boase, Mod. Eng. biog. · R. Welford, Men of mark 'twixt Tyne and Tweed, 3 vols. (1895) · W. H. Mullens and H. K. Swann, A bibliography of British ornithology from the earliest times to the end of 1912 (1917) · Entomologist's Monthly Magazine, 15 (1878–9), 44–5

Archives Oxf. U. Mus. NH, drawings of butterflies · U. Newcastle, Hancock Museum, catalogues and drawings | U. Newcastle, Robinson L., letters to Sir Walter Trevelyan



Likenesses portrait, repro. in Transactions of the Natural History Society of Northumberland, Durham and Newcastle, 7 (1880), 223–35