A BRIEF HISTORY OF DAUNTSEY'S SCHOOL NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY 



265 



Between 1952, when a new butterfly list was 

 issued, and the early 1960s accounts are more 

 positive. In 1956, for example, more visits and 

 meetings were being held; in 1959 a new 

 Constitution was drawn up; and in 1962 

 'celebrations' were held to mark the start of the new 

 society and 'the first anniversary of the old society's 

 dissolution'. But, behind this facade, membership 

 and interest continued to drop. No Reports or other 

 publications are known after 1956, and the 

 Dauntseian soon stopped mentioning the Society 

 altogether. The Society's Magazine also ceased 

 production, its early mix of material having become 

 more and more amateur, almost frivolous, and of 

 little value to the serious student. In fact, it seems to 

 have had distribution problems even earlier. 

 Hamilton wrote of the 1945 edition: 'to boost sales, 

 we announced that we were giving away free gifts. 

 The School collection of butterflies was going very 

 mouldy, so we broke this up and fixed a wing on to 

 the back of every page (a very ticklish job making it 

 stick), and here was our free gift! We printed about 

 1 20 magazines and there were not enough wings to 

 go round ... within ten minutes of issuing the 

 magazine a small boy had come along with a tale of 

 having no wing in his copy, so we gave him a complete 

 moth - he went away very happy. Then an irate sixth 

 former arrived ... to pacify him we gave him one our 

 biggest moths complete with pin.' By the 1960s the 

 other collections were also disintegrating. 



Hamilton's key role in the establishment and 

 development of the Society is clear. His capacity 

 for hard work, his commitment to natural history 

 as a part of biology and, in particular, his ability to 

 enthuse and support the pupils in his charge are all 

 evident in the publications. Evident, too, is his sense 

 of humour - the inclusion of numerous cartoons, 

 the boyish jokes in his editorials, the leg pulls in 

 which he engaged on outings. 



Amyan Macfadyen says of Hamilton: 'he was 

 totally against the kind of thing that present day 

 education attempts; the word 'syllabus' was taboo 

 in his presence His aim was always to raise strong 

 personal interest in his pupils and help them to think 

 and arrive at their own understanding and view on 

 subjects. He didn't suffer fools nor tolerate laziness. 

 I think he was the real generator of the NHS but it 

 was done surreptiously and, while receiving all 

 possible backing from him we certainly felt it was 

 our show'. 



The backing included 'fighting a battle' with 

 Olive to allow some members of the Society to use 

 bicycles to search out dew ponds all over Salisbury 



Plain even when they were not in the Vlth form. 

 Interestingly, however, it rarely extended to 

 accompanying members into the field himself, a 

 task which he left to Coulson. With regard to his 

 own input into the scientific work of the Society he 

 was modest. In referring to the recorders in the 

 revised Fauna List, for example, he introduced a 

 method of 'valuing' their work. Two stars were given 

 to those 'specialising in one group only, and 

 therefore very reliable within that group. Or a 

 general collector who was too cautious to make any 

 rash claims'; and one star to 'careful recorders, often 

 with a specialist knowledge of one group only, but 

 may not have realised that other species existed, or 

 a general collector associated with the school over 

 a number of years, whose later records are more 

 reliable than his earlier ones'. Macfadyen and Le 

 Cren are given two stars each, but he awards only 

 one to himself. Perhaps even more telling is a remark 

 by A.O Chase, the secretary in 1940, who wrote of 

 a lecture which Hamilton gave on 1 1 November in 

 that year: 'Mr Hamilton gave his belated talk this 

 evening on spiders - belated, because it was to have 

 been on Wednesday after supper, but an untimely 

 air-raid warning occurred. However, we enjoyed it 

 all the same. Not being able to produce living things 

 at this time of year he showed us some excellent 

 slides, as well as some cocoons and dead specimens. 

 Our enjoyment would have been enhanced if he 

 had not been so apologetic about everything'. 



Hamilton's concern with the importance of 

 correct determination of species is one which all 

 associated with contemporary biological and 

 botanical recording will understand. What they will 

 have more difficulty in comprehending, however, 

 is the amount of reliance he placed on books, as 

 opposed to consultation with other specialists and 

 the use of comparative material. This was something 

 which Marlborough understood well, and wide use 

 was made there of the staff of the British Museum 

 (Natural History) and others to identify difficult 

 material. It is true that Marlborough was much 

 helped by the presence of internationally respected 

 authorities who were on the staff (such as Edward 

 Meyrick, the microlepidopterist) or were old boys, 

 and by the fact that many experts came to the school 

 to give lectures. But Hamilton was himself in touch 

 with Randall Jackson, Ted Locket and Theodore 

 Savory, all well known authorities, to identify his 

 favourite spiders, and T.T.Macan, the freshwater 

 ecologist, was consulted by Macfadyen over the dew 

 pond species, which make this omission the more 

 surprising. 



