H. M. Phipson

Herbert Musgrave Phipson (1850 – August 7, 1936), was a British wine merchant and naturalist who lived in Bombay (now Mumbai), India, from 1878 to 1905. As the honorary secretary of the Bombay Natural History Society, editor of its Journal, and manager of the Society's business and outreach activities, he played an important role in not only establishing the journal's status as the foremost natural history journal in Asia, but also influencing public science policy in the Bombay Presidency. His efforts saw fruition in the establishment of the Natural Sciences section of the Prince of Wales Museum of Western India. Phipson, who was married to the pioneering physician Edith Pechey-Phipson, also co-founded, with his wife, the Pechey Phipson Sanitarium for Women and Children in Nasik, India.

Phipson was born in London in 1850 and educated at Clifton College. He went out to India in 1878 as a partner in the firm of J. A. Forbes & Co., Bombay. Five years later, he established his own company, Phipson & Co. Wine Merchants. He joined the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) in 1884 and in 1886 became both the Society's honorary secretary and the editor of its journal. He married Dr. Edith Pechey MD, head physician at the Cama Hospital for Women and Children, Bombay in 1889. In 1906, he and his wife returned to England, on account of her ill-health, to which, however, she succumbed two years later.

Phipson was visiting England when the Bombay Natural History Society was founded on 15 September 1883. Upon his return to Bombay, he immediately joined BNHS and in January 1884 offered office space belonging to his business as a permanent home for the Society. Two years later, when the need was felt for BNHS to expand, he again offered the Society part of the larger premises he had acquired for his business at 6 Apollo Street, Bombay. This was to be BNHS's home for the next fifty years. From March 1886, when he succeeded E. H. Aitken as honorary secretary, to April 1906 when he returned to England, Phipson was the driving force behind the Society. He served as the editor of the Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society for twenty years – as the sole editor for fifteen years and then joint editor with W. S. Millard who succeeded him as honorary secretary. His own main area of interest was snakes and, in spite of being tied down by his business and BNHS work, he found time to write the occasional note. See, for example, the humorous short note (Phipson 1887b) displayed in Figure 1, which lays claim for the familiar shores of Bombay to be included among the authenticated habitats of Gerard's water snake, which until then had been recorded only in Pegu, Burma.

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