Ernest Edward Galpin (1858–1941), was a botanist and banker born in the
Cape Colony
The Cape Colony (), also known as the Cape of Good Hope, was a British Empire, British colony in present-day South Africa named after the Cape of Good Hope. It existed from 1795 to 1802, and again from 1806 to 1910, when it united with three ...
. He left some 16,000 sheets to the National Herbarium in Pretoria and was dubbed "the Prince of Collectors" by General Smuts. Galpin discovered half a dozen genera and many hundreds of new species. Numerous species are named after him such as ''Acacia galpinii'', '' Bauhinia galpinii'', ''Cyrtanthus galpinii'', ''
Kleinia galpinii
''Kleinia galpinii'' is a species of flowering plant in the family Asteraceae. It is native to Zimbabwe, Eswatini, and South Africa's KwaZulu-Natal and Northern Provinces.Galpinia''
N.E.Br.
Nicholas Edward Brown (11 July 1849 in Redhill, Surrey – 25 November 1934 in Kew Gardens, London) was an English plant taxonomist and authority on succulents. He was also an authority on several families of plants, including Asclepiadaceae, ...
as is his farm in the genus ''
Mosdenia
''Mosdenia'' is a genus of African plants in the grass family. The only known species is ''Mosdenia leptostachys'', native to Angola and Limpopo
Limpopo () is the northernmost Provinces of South Africa, province of South Africa. It is na ...
'' Stent.
Early life
One of seven sons born in Grahamstown to Henry Carter Galpin, watchmaker and jeweller, and Georgina Maria Luck, Ernest Galpin started his education at the local St. Andrew's College. Due to his father's ill-health, Ernest left school at 14 to assist with the business. A short spell of active service on the frontier followed, after which he joined the Oriental Banking Corporation, later the Bank of Africa. After being transferred to Middelburg in the Cape, he developed an interest in the local plants and spent long hours dissecting and identifying wild flowers with the aid of the three volumes of ''Flora Capensis'' and Harvey's ''Genera''. However, it was not until 1888 when he became bank manager in Grahamstown, that his collecting took on a serious turn. In 1889 he was transferred to Barberton and became intrigued by the relatively unknown local flora. His specimens now started reflecting his meticulous nature in that they were carefully pressed, preserved and labelled with extensive notes on locality, habitat and plant form. His duplicates soon found their way to Kew, Zurich and a number of notable botanists such as
Harry Bolus
Harry Bolus (28 April 1834 – 25 May 1911) was a South African botanist, botanical artist, businessman and philanthropist. He advanced botany in South Africa by establishing bursaries, founding the Bolus Herbarium and bequeathing his library an ...
,
John Medley Wood
John Medley Wood (1 December 1827 – 26 August 1915) was a South African botanist who contributed greatly to the knowledge of Natal ferns, is generally credited with the establishment of sugarcane mosaic virus immune Uba sugar cane in Natal an ...
and
Peter MacOwan
Peter MacOwan (14 November 1830 in Hull, England – 30 November 1909 in Uitenhage, Cape Province) was a British colonial botanist and teacher in South Africa.
Early life and education
He was the son of Peter McOwan, a Wesleyan minister from Sco ...
. Not surprisingly his collection became internationally known. In Barberton he befriended a young lawyer and plant collector
Douglas Gilfillan
Douglas Flemmer Gilfillan (1865–1948) was a South African lawyer and plant collector.
Biography
Gilfillan went to school in Cradock, Eastern Cape, where his father Edward practised as a solicitor. After serving as an articled clerk in the Ca ...
, later to become his brother-in-law through their marriage to the de Jongh sisters. Galpin had had some new plant discoveries painted by Marie Elizabeth de Jongh (the daughter of Countess Mimi von Schönnberg) and married her in 1892. She shared his love of the outdoor life and accompanied him on many of his excursions and expeditions.
Later life
In 1892 Galpin was transferred to Queenstown, where he was to remain until his retirement in 1917. By now his herbarium specimens had grown to about 1500 in number. He made extensive collecting trips to mountains in the Eastern Cape, including Great Winterberg, Katberg, Stormberg and Andriesberg. In 1904 his wife accompanied him on a trip to the
Basutoland
Basutoland was a British Crown colony that existed from 1884 to 1966 in present-day Lesotho, bordered with the Cape Colony, Natal Colony and Orange River Colony until 1910 and completely surrounded by South Africa from 1910. Though the Basot ...
border where they collected around Ben MacDhui and Satsannasberg. In 1897 he set out on a trip from Port Elizabeth to Humansdorp, Knysna, George, Riversdale, Swellendam and Caledon districts, ending in Cape Town. Here he spent some time at the Bolus Herbarium. In 1905 he visited Rhodesia with the British Association, collecting at the
Victoria Falls
Victoria Falls (Lozi language, Lozi: ''Mosi-oa-Tunya'', "Thundering Smoke/Smoke that Rises"; Tonga language (Zambia and Zimbabwe), Tonga: ''Shungu Namutitima'', "Boiling Water") is a waterfall on the Zambezi River, located on the border betwe ...
and the
Matopos
The Matobo National Park forms the core of the Matobo or Matopos Hills, an area of granite kopjes and wooded valleys commencing some south of Bulawayo, southern Zimbabwe. The hills were formed over 2 billion years ago with granite being forced ...
.
In 1907, in the company of Prof. HHW Pearson, he undertook a trip to
South West Africa
South West Africa was a territory under Union of South Africa, South African administration from 1915 to 1990. Renamed ''Namibia'' by the United Nations in 1968, Independence of Namibia, it became independent under this name on 21 March 1990. ...
to study ''Welwitschia'', making stops at
Port Nolloth
Port Nolloth is a town and seaport in the Namaqualand region on the northwestern coast of South Africa, northwest of Springbok. It is the seat of the Richtersveld Local Municipality.
The port was previously a transshipment point for copper fro ...
, Lüderitz Bay, Swakopmund, Welwitsch Station and following the
Swakop River
The Swakop River () is a major river in western central Namibia. Its source is in the Khomas Highland. From there it flows westwards through the town of Okahandja, the historic mission station at Gross Barmen, and the settlement of Otjimb ...
to Haikamkab. In 1910 he and his wife departed Lourenço Marques for
Kenya
Kenya, officially the Republic of Kenya, is a country located in East Africa. With an estimated population of more than 52.4 million as of mid-2024, Kenya is the 27th-most-populous country in the world and the 7th most populous in Africa. ...
and
Uganda
Uganda, officially the Republic of Uganda, is a landlocked country in East Africa. It is bordered to the east by Kenya, to the north by South Sudan, to the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to the south-west by Rwanda, and to the ...
, collecting in the
Aberdare Mountains
The Aberdare Range (formerly the Sattima Range, Kikuyu: ''Nyandarua'') is a long mountain range of upland, north of Kenya's capital Nairobi with an average elevation of . It straddles the counties of Nyandarua, Nyeri, Murang'a, Kiambu and La ...
and returning with a new species of tree ''Lobelia''.
From 1913 on he added few specimens to his collection, which even so numbered about 16,000 by 1916 when he donated the entire collection to the National Herbarium in Pretoria.
In 1917 he retired to his farm Mosdene on the Springbok Flats near Naboomspruit north of Pretoria. Here he became inspired to start collecting again. Following the lead of Dr. I.B. Pole Evans, he started an intensive botanical study of the countryside surrounding his farm. Despite failing eyesight, he was taught to drive by his son, and together they set out on a trip through the Transkei and the Eastern Cape. His wife suffered a fatal heart attack in Durban in 1933 while he was on an expedition in the mountains of the eastern Transvaal.
He was a life member of the
Linnean Society
The Linnean Society of London is a learned society dedicated to the study and dissemination of information concerning natural history, evolution, and taxonomy. It possesses several important biological specimen, manuscript and literature collec ...
and joined the S. Afr. Assoc. for the Adv. of Science a year after its founding. Vol. 13 of ''Flowering Plants of South Africa'' was dedicated to him, and the University of South Africa conferred an honorary doctorate on him.
Publications
*
*
* "Botanical Survey of the Springbok Flats" ''Botanical Survey Memoir No.12'' (1927)
* with EA Galpin (his son)