Naturalist and aquarium inventor Philip Henry Gosse lived in Torquay

Significant people who lived with in Torbay in the 20th century, not always famous, by Ian Handford, president of Torbay Civic Society. This week, 16 - Philip Henry Gosse

Zoologist and renowned writer on natural history, Philip Henry Gosse was the son of Thomas Goss and was born in Worcester on April 6, 1810.

He was 'spotted' by an aunt, mother of Professor Thomas Bell, being a woman of science herself. Philip's debut as a writer came in 1826 while working in a whaler's office on Newfoundland. By 1835, he clearly was enjoying being a naturalist - interested especially in insects he viewed under his first microscope.

In 1836, his book, The Entomology of Newfoundland, with drawings of fauna and flora was complete but never published. On departure from Newfoundland, he moved to Philadelphia and having been warmly received, by 1838 was attending the Academy of Natural Sciences before then spending five months teaching in Dallas before finally coming home.

At age just 33, scientists everywhere had noticed him and now the British Museum commissioned him to obtain all un-described birds and insects of Jamaica. That trip was his last as on return in 1846, he never travelled abroad again.

Birds of Jamaica was published in 1847 and, a year later, Philip (Wesleyian) married Anglican Miss Emily Bowes, an American. The couple enjoyed similar thoughts on the divisions affecting the Protestant church and with Emily speaking three languages, she clearly was the more dominant character and unknowingly held power over the will and nature of her husband.

Edmund, their son, later wrote: “Here was a perfect purity, perfect intrepidity, perfect abnegation, yet also narrowness, isolation and an absence of perspective - an absence of humanity - entire resignation to the will of god and not less entire disdain of the judgement and opinion of man.”

Edmund was born into a strange household, unwelcomed by his father who had noted in his diary in 1849: “E. delivered a son. Received green swallow from Jamaica.”

The couple had a life devoted to God praying every day seated and isolated from the world. Some believed Philip's best work came in 1851 - A Naturalist's Sojourn in Jamaica, The Antiquities of Assyria and, finally, papers for the Society of Promoting Christian Knowledge (SPCK).

Overworked and advised to retire, Gosse being interested in marine invertebrates, came to St Marychurch in 1852 before travelling to North Devon. Those shoreline exploits produced A Naturalist's Rambles on the Devonshire Coast, which was published.

In 1853, Gosse announced he could keep marine animals alive for 11 months - a feat thought previously impossible. In London, he built a large glass tank with plants and marine animals in Regents Park and named it simply the Fish House. It was, of course, Britain's first aquarium and became popular.

Yet storms on evolution were mounting and at odds with earth's age and God's 'six days of creation', a disillusioned Gosse now moved to Weymouth. 

Corresponding only with the Rev Charles Kingsley, he moved to Torquay and, in late 1853, completed Wonders of the Shore - again well received. Yet his next book, Tenby, in touching on evolution was very controversial.

By 1857 the family were permanently living at Sandhurst in St Marychurch Road where two volumes - Life, and Omphalos - were written, on natural selection and animal development versus deity. Now both books were rejected by academia who said Gosse's 'fanciful theories' on religion were outdated.

Emily died that year and the loss of her intellectual support saw Gosse going against all new 'orders' and even isolated himself mentally and spiritually from everyone, expecting his son to do the same.

Then in 1860 Philip married Eliza Brightwen (Plymouth Brethren) and they established a Gospel Hall in St Marychurch. Being devoted to cultivating orchids and microscopic studies of rotifera - a section of zoology neglected - the only person who 'could entice him out' was Rev Kingsley.

Edmund now refused to accept his father's world and, instead, rejected him. He called his father 'a militant evolutionary atheist'.

Then having contracted bronchitis, Gosse died at his home, Sandhurst, on August 23, 1888. He was buried in Torquay Cemetery. His wife Eliza died in 1900 and was also buried in Torquay Cemetery.

IAN'S COMMENT: An extraordinary life that left us a famous son, the St Marychurch chapel and Sandhurst although rarely is recalled today until now.

NEXT WEEK: Billy Dainty