Tenby

Ecotourism Resource

Overview

No votes yet

Birthplace of citizen science.

Early Victorian guide books to Tenby emphasize that the town, its beaches and surrounding countryside would provide endless opportunities for stimulating your mental powers with wholesome educational pursuits. Rock pools, cliff-top flowers and grasses, shells, tideline seaweeds and contorted rock formations, provided the raw material for observation, collection and classification. These earnest guidebooks assured naturalists, botanists, geologists, zoologists and the curious layman, that at every turnTenby's natural delights were waiting to dazzle and amaze.

Much of this local activity was given greater focus and significance by the presense in Tenby of some of the country's leading biologists. All of this commendable behaviour was to be set within a context of long walks, preferably to sites of major historical interest within the neighbourhood, which would further feed the Victorian appetite for knowledge and self-improvement.

This is illustrated by the visit of Philip Henry Gosse in 1854. Taking the first opportunity to search the caverns of the island, Gosse soon confirmed that the Tenby seashore was indeed rich with all manner of marine specimens, in such quantity, as he had never met before. Enjoying their best health for over two years, the family actively searched the seashore in their usual manner, whilst Gosse studied and noted the characteristics of the specimens they discovered, continually making additions to the existing knowledge of seaside zoology. During this visit Gosse made firm friendships with Bishop of Oxford, Dr. Wilberforce, with whom he corresponded, keeping him up to date on his latest discoveries, and also zoologist Dr. F. D. Dyster, buying his microscope for £30, which Gosse used for the rest of his life.

Fredrick Daniel Dyster, M.D. F.L.S., was by then a prominent citizen of Tenby and well known to many visiting naturalists, which included Bowerbank, Huxley, and Darwin, who sought him out for his extensive knowledge of natural history. Dyster's speciality was in the seashore, with a particular interest in Annelidae; marine worms

Location:

Javascript is required to view this map.

Comments

Connections

Compare related sites, explore the related maps, find out about volunteering, how to get here and more. Soon, you will find ways to share this map here, too.

Getting Here

Contacts

Every site using the same primary Icon on Open Green Map is automatically linked here. You can compare different approaches and solutions on this map and others around the world.
Other Sites on Map

n/a

Related Sites Worldwide
Choose a connections category from the list on the left.

Multimedia

Registered users can post photos, videos, and documents here.

Impacts

No impacts have been left for this site yet - be the first!

Donate to GreenMaps