Emanuel W. Bonavia (also spelled Emmanuel) (15 July 1829 – 14 November 1908) was a Maltese surgeon in the

Indian Medical Service The Indian Medical Service (IMS) was a military medical service in British India, which also had some civilian functions. It served during the two World Wars, and remained in existence until the independence of India in 1947. Many of its officer ...

who wrote on many aspects of natural history, economic botany, and pioneered horticultural research in

Lucknow Lucknow () is the List of state and union territory capitals in India, capital and the largest city of the List of state and union territory capitals in India, Indian state of Uttar Pradesh and it is the administrative headquarters of the epon ...

. He was the first superintendent of the Lucknow Provincial Museum and the founder of the Lucknow Horticultural Gardens.

Life and work

Bonavia was born in

Valletta Valletta ( ; , ) is the capital city of Malta and one of its 68 Local councils of Malta, council areas. Located between the Grand Harbour to the east and Marsamxett Harbour to the west, its population as of 2021 was 5,157. As Malta’s capital ...

in British colonial Malta, the third son of Mary née Hobson and Calcedonio Bonavia. An older brother

Giuseppe Giuseppe is the Italian form of the given name Joseph, from Latin Josephus, Iōsēphus from Ancient Greek Ἰωσήφ (Iōsḗph), from Hebrew יוסף. The feminine form of the name is Giuseppa or Giuseppina (given name), Giuseppina. People wit ...

became an architect in the

Royal Engineers The Corps of Royal Engineers, usually called the Royal Engineers (RE), and commonly known as the ''Sappers'', is the engineering arm of the British Army. It provides military engineering and other technical support to the British Armed Forces ...

while another brother George became an artist. Emanuel studied medicine at the

University of Malta The University of Malta (, UM, formerly UOM) is a higher education institution in Malta. It offers undergraduate bachelor's degrees, postgraduate master's degrees and postgraduate doctorates. It is a member of the European University Association, ...

and at the

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh (, ; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a Public university, public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Founded by the City of Edinburgh Council, town council under th ...

qualifying MRCS in 1857. He was commissioned Assistant Surgeon in the Indian Medical Service on 4 August 1857 and was present at the capture of Lucknow in March 1858 and saw action at the trans-Gogra campaign. He was promoted Surgeon Major in 1876 and Brigade Surgeon in 1885, retiring in 1888. He served as Principal of the medical school at Balrampur in 1873. Trained in medical botany, he came to take charge of the Lucknow garden in 1876. The Lucknow botanical garden began as a park after 1857. He then began to study the cultivation of citrus, date palms (an interest in date palms also led to studies on floral depiction in Assyrian monuments, suggesting that the Assyrian sacred tree was based on multiple trees of value including a date palm as the trunk) and other plants of economic importance. He wrote a book examining the prospects of cultivating date palms in India and ''The Villager's Domestic Medicine'' (1885). He speculated on the ancestry of Indian acid lime. He also published on

sericulture Sericulture, or silk farming, is the cultivation of silkworms to produce silk. Although there are several commercial species of silkworms, the caterpillar of the Bombyx mori, domestic silkmoth is the most widely used and intensively studied silkwo ...

in Oudh. He was also interested in other aspects of natural history and wrote a book on evolution which examined such aspects as the evolution of spots and stripes in wild cats and the origins of other animal skin patterning. He speculated that these patterns were derived from armoured ancestors such as

glyptodonts Glyptodonts are an extinct clade of large, heavily armoured armadillos, reaching up to in height, and maximum body masses of around 2 tonnes. They had short, deep skulls, a fused vertebral column, and a large bony carapace made up of hundreds o ...

with the ancestral rosette as seen in the leopard consolidated into spots in cheetahs, blotches, and stripes in other cats. In his ''Contributions to Christology'' (1869) he attempted to identify rational explanations for miracles involving animals. He corresponded with

Charles Darwin Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English Natural history#Before 1900, naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all speci ...

, and naturalists in India such as

Allan Octavian Hume Allan Octavian Hume, Order of the Bath, CB Indian Civil Service, ICS (4 June 1829 – 31 July 1912) was a British political reformer, ornithologist, civil servant and botanist who worked in British Raj, British India and was the founding spirit ...

to whom he sent bird specimens. He was one of the founders of the Lucknow museum (Oudh provincial museum), established in 1863. He contributed specimens to the museum, including that of a

pink-headed duck The pink-headed duck (''Rhodonessa caryophyllacea'') is a large diving duck that was once found in parts of the Indo-Gangetic Plain, Gangetic plains of India, Nepal, parts of Maharashtra, Bangladesh and in the riverine swamps of Myanmar but has b ...

, obtained from the local market. Bonavia also maintained careful records of weather and examined long-term variation in the patterns of rains, supporting the

theory A theory is a systematic and rational form of abstract thinking about a phenomenon, or the conclusions derived from such thinking. It involves contemplative and logical reasoning, often supported by processes such as observation, experimentation, ...

that linked them to sun-spots. He also served as a Civil Surgeon at Etawah and worked on public sanitation, making attempts to stop open defecation in Lucknow. Bonavia retired in 1888 and lived on Richmond road,

Worthing Worthing ( ) is a seaside town and borough in West Sussex, England, at the foot of the South Downs, west of Brighton, and east of Chichester. With a population of 113,094 and an area of , the borough is the second largest component of the Br ...

, Sussex, continuing to take an interest in gardening and hybridization of ornamental plants, publishing in the ''Gardener's Chronicle'', until his death.

References

External links

Contributions to Christology (1869)

The Future of the Date Palm in India (1885)

The cultivated oranges and lemons, etc. of India and Ceylon (1888)

Philosophical notes on botanical subjects (1892)

The flora of the Assyrian monuments and its outcomes (1894)

Studies in the Evolution of Animals (1895)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bonavia, Emmanuel Horticulturists 1829 births 1908 deaths Maltese surgeons People from Valletta Indian Medical Service officers Expatriates in British India University of Malta alumni Crown Colony of Malta people History of Lucknow History of Awadh Scholars from Lucknow