Charles Foster Batchelder
| Charles Foster Batchelder | |
|---|---|
| Born | July 20, 1856 Cambridge, Massachusetts |
| Died |
November 7, 1954 (aged 98) Peterborough, New Hampshire |
| Nationality | American |
| Fields | Ornithology, natural history |
| Institutions | Harvard |
| Alma mater | Harvard University |
| Known for | Founding member of the American Ornithologists' Union and the Nuttall Ornithological Club. |
| Author abbrev. (zoology) | Batchelder |
Charles Foster Batchelder (July 20, 1856 – November 7, 1954) was an American ornithologist and naturalist. He was an early member and President of the American Ornithologists' Union, and of the Nuttall Ornithological Club. He also edited The Auk, and before it, the Bulletin of the Nuttall Ornithological Club.
Batchelder was born to Francis Lowell Batchelder and Susan Cabot Foster-Batchelder, and grew up next to Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. As a youngster, he developed a friendship with a number of future figures in ornithology, such as William Brewster, Henry Wetherbee Henshaw, Henry Augustus Purdie, Charles Johnson Maynard and William Earl Dodge Scott. Batchelder hardly knew his father, who had died when he was 18 months old. His sister also died at about the time he entered Harvard, having completed his studies at the local public high school.
In university, he came in contact with several leading thinkers, and had a particular admiration for Nathaniel S. Shaler and Henry L. Eustis. He graduated in 1882 with a degree in engineering science. During that time, the group of nature-inclined youth led by Brewster met at the latter's home, and these meetings would eventually evolve into the Nuttall Ornithological Club (officially in 1873), of which Batchelder became a member in 1877. Two years later he was elected vice-president before later becoming treasurer, a position he would keep for half a century.
After his graduation, he traveled and collected extensively in the Southwestern United States. He pursued a brief career in his original vocation upon his return in 1884, which only served to shake his frail health, a situation that was not helped by his subsequent travel to Europe, which lasted until 1887. His health would only be restored a few months before his return. Stuck in his oversea quarters, he worked on developing better labels and checklists.
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