Cyril Jonas Bergtheil (2 December 1878 – 25 August 1973) known from around 1916 as Cyril Jonas Berkeley was an English chemist, bacteriologist, and zoologist of German ancestry. He worked in India from 1902 to 1912 serving as an Imperial Bacteriologist and later collaborated with his wife Edith Berkeley in studies on

polychaete Polychaeta () is a paraphyletic class of generally marine Annelid, annelid worms, common name, commonly called bristle worms or polychaetes (). Each body segment has a pair of fleshy protrusions called parapodia that bear many bristles, called c ...

Early life

Cyril was born in London, the son of Louis Michael Bergtheil and Alice Maud. When he was very young, his parents were divorced, and his mother married again. It was his step-father Alfred James Puttick who introduced him to science through scientific periodicals and visits to lectures at the

Royal Institution The Royal Institution of Great Britain (often the Royal Institution, Ri or RI) is an organisation for scientific education and research, based in the City of Westminster. It was founded in 1799 by the leading British scientists of the age, inc ...

. He studied at St. Paul's school from 1891 to 1895 and moved to

Nuremberg Nuremberg (, ; ; in the local East Franconian dialect: ''Nämberch'' ) is the Franconia#Towns and cities, largest city in Franconia, the List of cities in Bavaria by population, second-largest city in the States of Germany, German state of Bav ...

, where he learnt German and studied chemistry at the Industrieschule.

Work

1987-1903

Cyril went to

University College London University College London (Trade name, branded as UCL) is a Public university, public research university in London, England. It is a Member institutions of the University of London, member institution of the Federal university, federal Uni ...

and worked in

William Ramsay Sir William Ramsay (; 2 October 1852 – 23 July 1916) was a Scottish chemist who discovered the noble gases and received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1904 "in recognition of his services in the discovery of the inert gaseous elements ...

's laboratory from 1897 to 1899 alongside others like

Morris Travers Morris William Travers, FRS (24 January 1872 – 25 August 1961) was an English chemist who worked with Sir William Ramsay in the discovery of xenon, neon and krypton. His work on several of the rare gases earned him the name ''Rare Gas ...

. From 1899 to 1901 he researched agricultural chemistry and bacteriology at the Agricultural College, Wye. While in Ramsay's lab he met Edith Dunington in 1898. He went to India to work for the British Indigo Planter's Association. As artificial indigo made indigo farming obsolete in India, he was recognized for his work by the government and they sought to retain him for the newly proposed agricultural research institute at Pusa. In 1902, Bergtheil was appointed bacteriologist in the Agriculture Department of India. He married Edith on February 26, 1902 and they sailed for Bombay the next day. His initial work was to study the manufacture of indigo under chemist Christopher Rawson with the aim to compete with Germany and their synthetic indigo dyes. He worked for eleven years, mostly at the Sirsia indigo research station, Muzzafarpur. The work included attempts to improve the efficiency of extraction of the indigo. They had a daughter Alfreda Alice on March 3, 1903. She was sent to live with her maternal grandmother in England due to her poor health and she later became a zoologist.

1904-1964

Bergtheil collaborated with other scientists in India, joining I.H. Burkill along the Hooker trail in the eastern Himalayas during which he became interested in the distribution of earthworms. He collected across altitude gradients and worked on these specimens with

Michaelsen Michaelsen is a Danish patronymic surname meaning "son of Michael". There are related English, German, Norwegian, Swedish and other Scandinavian spellings of this name. People with the name Michaelsen include: People * Gottfried Michaelsen ...

, who named a species ''Megascolides bergtheili'' after him. The family changed from their German-Jewish surname around 1916 to Berkeley due to the World War and public suspicion around those with German names or connections. Berkeley began to work on polychaetes in collaboration with his wife. Around 1916-17 he taught bacteriology at the

University of British Columbia The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a Public university, public research university with campuses near University of British Columbia Vancouver, Vancouver and University of British Columbia Okanagan, Kelowna, in British Columbia, Canada ...

while his wife taught zoology. They visited the Nanaimo field station in 1917. Berkeley also worked on acetone production from kelp for Hercules Powder Company in San Diego. In 1919 the family moved to live in

Nanaimo Nanaimo ( ) is a city of about 100,000 on the east coast of Vancouver Island, in British Columbia, Canada. "The Harbour City" was previously known as the "Hub City", which was attributed to its original layout design with streets radiating fr ...

and Cyril worked as an assistant curator at the station. Together the Berkeleys authored nearly 34 papers between 1932 and 1964.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bergtheil, Cyril J. English bacteriologists English chemists 1878 births 1973 deaths Alumni of Wye College British people in colonial India