Edith Durham: from drawing Surinam Toads to Balkan anthropology and supporting Albania

In 1901, a book appeared which is still worth reading or simply for looking up what was known at the time. It is remarkable because the author was not known for his research on reptiles and amphibians but for birds in particular and vertebrates in general. He was Hans Gadow who was born in Prussia in 1855. After working with the big names in German zoology, he arrived in London to take a job at the Natural History Museum. From there he moved to Cambridge as Curator of Birds in the university’s zoology museum but after two years he was also appointed Lecturer in Vertebrate Morphology at which time he became a naturalised British subject. He was elected to the Royal Society in 1892 but the weird world of Cambridge only promoted him to a Readership in 1920, only eight years before he died.

Gadow's biographer for the Royal Society, David Meredith Seares Watson FRS (1886 –1973) palaeontologist and professor of zoology in University College London wrote:

…and he was greatly interested in the problems of animal colour and of geographical distribution.

In order to have first-hand knowledge of these matters, he travelled extensively in Spain and Mexico, observing amphibians, reptiles, and birds in their natural environments. The results are recorded in two books of travel, and in many papers.

In some ways, the best and certainly the most characteristic work which Gadow published was the volume on Amphibia and Reptiles in the ‘Cambridge Natural History.’ In this book, morphology holds a subordinate place, the greater part of it consisting of short and often most entertaining accounts of individual species regarded as animals living in the world.

It is full of observations of habits of all kinds—food preferences and the capture of food, locomotion, breeding habits, colour changes, the musical appreciation of Tortoises—many of them original, and most confirmed by his own observations of animals which he kept in his house outside Cambridge. Indeed, the whole book well displays the real love and understanding he had of these beasts.

The success of Gadow’s book which appeared in 1901 can also be attributed to the illustrations. Gadow in the preface explained: 

The drawings on wood were, with few exceptions, made by Miss M.E. Durham, mostly from living specimens—a procedure which has to a great extent determined the selection of the illustrations.

Why Edith Durham got the commission for illustrating Gadow’s book I do not know, other than, of course, her undoubted talent in drawing living animals that looked like living animals. Her father was a well-connected London surgeon. She was the first of nine children, a number of whom became well known in fields from science from suffragism.

A reminder that if you are reading this article other than on 'Zoology Jottings' it has been stolen from me.

Having used one of Miss Durham’s drawings of Tuataras to illustrate an article, I wondered what else she had produced and was surprised to discover that she had become famous in another field entirely.

Edith Durham

A great deal has been written on Mary Edith Durham (1863–1944) and what follows is a brief outline of her life. She was a student at Bedford College and then the Royal Society of Arts. Some of her works are held in galleries and museums. After her father’s death in 1895 she looked after her ailing mother. Utterly exhausted by this role her doctor advised a holiday. That advice taken she travelled by ship from Trieste to Kotor and then inland in Montenegro. That trip changed her life. She learnt Serbo-Croat on her return and delved into the history of the Balkans. After further extensive travel in the region she published her first book in 1904. Then she concentrated on Albania. Over twenty years she championed the Albanian people. The Balkans were a major cause of interest and indeed political obsession in Britain in the early decades of the 20th century. Edith Durham was known to be eccentric and ‘difficult’ getting up the noses of both London intellectuals and the Foreign Office for her advocacy of the people of Albania, particularly those who lived under dire conditions in the north of the country. She published her studies in anthropological journals and books; she was involved in aid organisations; she drew and painted the areas she studied, and she collected costumes, jewellery, textiles and artefacts. She was the first woman to be elected vice-president of the Royal Anthropological Institute.

Dubbed the ‘Queen of the Highlanders’ Edith Durham is still celebrated as a national heroine in Albania.