Frederick Octavius Pickard-Cambridge
| Frederick Octavius Pickard-Cambridge | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born | 3 November 1860 Warmwell, Dorset |
| Died | 9 February 1905 (aged 44) |
| Nationality | British |
| Education | Sherborne and Oxford |
| Occupation | Clergyman, illustrator, naturalist |
Frederick Octavius Pickard-Cambridge (3 November 1860 – 9 February 1905) was an English arachnologist. He is sometimes confused with his uncle, Octavius Pickard-Cambridge (1828–1917), who was also an arachnologist and from whom F. O. Pickard-Cambridge picked up his enthusiasm for the study of spiders.
F. O. Pickard-Cambridge was born in Warmwell, Dorset, where his father was rector. He became a curate at St Cuthbert's church in Carlisle for a few years after having been educated at Sherborne School and Exeter College, Oxford. He left to become a professional biological illustrator, and in 1894–1895 spent several months in the Amazon as a naturalist on board the SS Faraday. He found much of interest on his voyage and began writing papers in 1896 to describe the spiders he discovered.
He had a promising career ahead of him, but this promise was not to be fulfilled. Bristowe, writing in the book British Spiders, 1951, said of this time in his life: "Whilst he was still in his 30s, however, a marked change came over him which led to misfortune". He gave up the priesthood because of his extreme religious views, and became estranged from friends and family on account of his strong political opinions. This unfortunate new tendency also spilled over into his natural history work, and he had fierce arguments with other scientists, such as Karsch, over questions of nomenclature.
F. O. Pickard-Cambridge's papers were published between 1889 and 1905, some posthumously. He worked on spiders from across the world, not just British ones, and as opposed to being a collector was more concerned with the study of specimens in reference collections and papers – work which was often passed over in previous decades when many new discoveries were being made by explorers and collectors. His work was largely taxonomic, consisting of a re-examination of the relationships between various species, including many described by his celebrated uncle. For example, he discovered several species which had been described more than once and so had more than one name, or, by contrast, more than one species which had only one name. He created several new genera and added sixteen species of spider to the British list.
...
Wikipedia