Bernard Price Institute for Palaeontological Research

The Bernard Price Institute for Palaeontological Research (BPI) aka the Evolutionary Studies Institute (ESI), is part of the School of Geosciences in the Faculty of Science of the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. It was established in 1945.

In 1937, the University of the Witwatersrand established the Bernard Price Institute of Geophysical Research, named for a local industrialist and philanthropist, Dr. Bernard Price OBE, who provided the initial funding. A world-recognized authority on lightning detection and analysis, Dr. Basil Schonland, was selected as the founding director. Two years later, Dr. Schonland was asked to develop an aircraft detection apparatus (later called radar) for the Defence Force. Using the institute's small but highly qualified staff, this was accomplished before the end of the year. By 1941, the radar (designated JB) was deployed around the coast, and Lt. Colonel Schonland went to England where he made major contributions to the war effort. In 1945, when the institute returned to non-military activities at the end of the war, Dr. Price provided funds in several stages to expand its activities.

At a public lecture given at the University of the Witwatersrand, a remarkable Scottish-born medical doctor-turned-palaeontologist, Dr Robert Broom called attention to the fact that thousands of fossils were being lost annually in South Africa because of a lack of proper facilities to collect, preserve and study them. Dr. Price was in the audience. Broom's eloquence and passion won him over and he pledged an amount of money to establish a foundation at the university dedicated to the collection, curation and research of South African fossils.

Several years earlier, another person had fallen under the spell of Broom – a young James William Kitching from the small town of Graaff-Reinet in the semi-desert Karoo region of the Eastern Cape province.

Broom knew that the Karoo was rich in fossils representing the period of earth history between about 265 million and 215 million years ago, and he visited the Karoo whenever he could. It was the richness of fossils in the Karoo that had originally attracted Broom to South Africa from Scotland via Australia in the closing years of the 19th century. He initially established a medical practice in the coastal town of Port Elizabeth. But it wasn’t long before he moved his practice to the small rural town of Pearston, near Graaff-Reinet in the Karoo, specifically so that he could be near the fossil beds and could devote all his spare time to searching for fossils. During his visits to the Karoo, Broom would call on the Kitching family in the nearby village of Nieu-Bethesda and encourage them to look for fossils for his researches. The entire family became dedicated and skilful fossil collectors, but none more so than the eldest son, James.

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