Dorothy Amaury Talbot Explained

Dorothy Amaury Talbot (née Amaury, 1871 – 1916) was an English plant collector and ethnographer in Nigeria. She and her husband and sister collected over 4000 Nigerian plant species, including newly discovered ones. She also studied and wrote on the Ibibio people.

Born in 1871, Dorothy married Percy Talbot, a colonial civil servant. She and her sister, Miss Amaury, accompanied him on several long stints of being stationed in Nigeria as a surveyor.^[1] They periodically sent plant collections back to Britain until her death.

Plant collection

In 1910 – 11, Dorothy undertook a circular journey around Nigeria with her husband and fellow plant collector Olive MacLeod, collecting and painting Nigerian plants.^{[2] [3] [4]} A further collection from the Eket district followed in 1912 – 1913 when the Talbots and Miss Amaury were stationed there.^{[5] [6]} Their collection, along with about 1000 drawings of the plants produced by Dorothy, was presented to the Natural History Museum.^{[7] [8] [9]} To the British Museum they gave about 4000 botanical and zoological specimens as well as making gifts to Kew Gardens.  

The genus Talbotiella was named for the Talbots,^[10] with Dorothea Wernham being named for Dorothy individually.^{[11] [12]}

Ethnography

Dorothy and her husband were also interested in the ethnography of the Ibibio people, who they saw as largely unaffected by contact with white people until their arrival.^[13] They collected representative artifacts from them, and Dorothy's book Woman's Mysteries of a Primitive People: The Ibibios of Southern Nigeria was published in 1915.^{[14] [15]}

Dorothy established the Percy Amaury Talbot prize for African anthropology, administered by the Royal Anthropological Institute.^[16]

She died in Degama, Nigeria, on 28 December 1916 from malaria.

Notes and References

1. Rendle . Alfred Barton . 1917 . Book-Notes, News Etc. . Journal of Botany, British and Foreign . 55 . 85–6 . Biodiversity Heritage Library.
2. Book: MacLeod, Olive . Chiefs and Cities of Central Africa, Across Lake Chad by Way of British, French, and German Territories (Classic Reprint) . 2018-04-23 . FB&C Limited . 978-1-330-48268-1 . en.
3. Book: Hepper . F. N. . Plant Collectors in West Africa: A Biographical Index of Those who Have Collected Herbarium Material of Flowering Plants and Ferns Between Cape Verne and Lake Chad, and from the Coast to the Sahara at 18° N . Neate . Fiona . 1971 . Oosthoek . 77 . en.
4. Book: International Bureau For Plant Taxonomy And Nomenclature . Index herbariorum. Part II, Collectors . Nomenclature . International Bureau For Plant Taxonomy And . 1983 . Bohn, Scheltema & Holkema . 5-7=N-Z (1983-1988) . Utrecht . 989–90.
5. Rendle . Alfred Barton . 1914 . Plants from the Eket District, S. Nigeria . Journal of Botany, British and Foreign . 52 . 1 . Biodiversity Heritage Library.
6. Web site: Percy Amaury Talbot . 2024-06-28 . www.britishmuseum.org.
7. Book: Ogilvie . Marilyn Bailey . The Biographical Dictionary of Women in Science: L-Z . Harvey . Joy Dorothy . 2000 . Taylor & Francis . 978-0-415-92040-7 . 1262 . en.
8. Hopkins . Helen C.F. . Wajer . Jacek . 2023-09-13 . Variation in the colour and shape of capitula in Parkia bicolor (Leguminosae) illustrated by two watercolours from southern Nigeria painted by Dorothy Amaury Talbot (1871–1916) . Candollea . 78 . 2 . 10.15553/c2023v782a3 . 0373-2967.
9. Web site: Talbot Collection . 2024-06-28 . Natural History Museum . en.
10. Book: Quattrocchi, Umberto . CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names: Common Names, Scientific Names, Eponyms. Synonyms, and Etymology . 1999-11-22 . CRC Press . 978-0-8493-2678-3 . 2626 . en.
11. Web site: Talbot, Dorothy Amaury (1871-1916) on JSTOR . 2024-06-28 . plants.jstor.org .
12. Web site: Dorothea talbotii Wernham, from Nigeria on JSTOR . 2024-06-28 . plants.jstor.org .
13. Book: Karp . Ivan . Museums and Communities: The Politics of Public Culture . Kreamer . Christine Mullen . Levine . Steven . 1992-05-17 . Smithsonian Institution . 978-1-56098-189-3 . 233 . en.
14. Web site: Woman's Mysteries of a Primitive People: The Ibibios of South Nigeria . 2024-06-28 . Routledge & CRC Press . en.
15. Meek . C. K. . 1947 . 5. Amaury Talbot: 1877-1945 . Man . 47 . 13–14 . 2791974 . 0025-1496.
16. Web site: PERCY AMAURY TALBOT PRIZE FOR AFRICAN ANTHROPOLOGY (A86) . 2024-06-28 . Royal Anthropological Institute . en-gb.