Frederic Henry Gravely (7 December 1885 – 1965) was an eminent British

arachnologist Arachnology is the scientific study of arachnids, which comprise spiders and related invertebrates such as scorpions, pseudoscorpions, harvestmen, ticks, and mites. Those who study spiders and other arachnids are arachnologists. More narrowly ...

entomologist Entomology (from Ancient Greek ἔντομον (''éntomon''), meaning "insect", and -logy from λόγος (''lógos''), meaning "study") is the branch of zoology that focuses on insects. Those who study entomology are known as entomologists. In ...

botanist Botany, also called plant science, is the branch of natural science and biology studying plants, especially Plant anatomy, their anatomy, Plant taxonomy, taxonomy, and Plant ecology, ecology. A botanist or plant scientist is a scientist who s ...

zoologist Zoology ( , ) is the scientific study of animals. Its studies include the structure, embryology, classification, habits, and distribution of all animals, both living and extinct, and how they interact with their ecosystems. Zoology is one ...

and student of

archaeology Archaeology or archeology is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of Artifact (archaeology), artifacts, architecture, biofact (archaeology), biofacts or ecofacts, ...

, who conducted pioneering research and wrote extensively on various subjects during his tenure at the

Indian Museum Indian Museum (formerly called Imperial Museum of Calcutta) is a grand museum in Central Kolkata, West Bengal, India. It is the ninth oldest museum in the world and the oldest, as well as the largest museum in Asia, by size of collection. It ...

Calcutta Kolkata, also known as Calcutta (List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, its official name until 2001), is the capital and largest city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal. It lies on the eastern ba ...

, and the Government Museum,

Madras Chennai, also known as Madras ( its official name until 1996), is the capital and largest city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost state of India. It is located on the Coromandel Coast of the Bay of Bengal. According to the 2011 Indian ce ...

Early life

Gravely was born in 1885 in

Wellingborough Wellingborough ( ) is a market town in the North Northamptonshire, Unitary Authority area, England, from London and from Northampton, north of the River Nene. Originally named "Wendelingburgh" (the stronghold of Wændel's people), the Anglo ...

Northamptonshire Northamptonshire ( ; abbreviated Northants.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East Midlands of England. It is bordered by Leicestershire, Rutland and Lincolnshire to the north, Cambridgeshire to the east, Bedfordshi ...

, England to Arthur Frederic Gravely and Margaret Hutchinson, the eldest of four children. The family were Quakers and although the father was a businessman, he was interested in natural history. His mother came from a farming family which also produced Sir Jonathan Hutchinson. At the age of nine he moved to a boarding school in Sheffield. He then studied at Ackworth and Bootham (both Quaker schools) before moving to

Manchester University The University of Manchester is a public university, public research university in Manchester, England. The main campus is south of Manchester city centre, Manchester City Centre on Wilmslow Road, Oxford Road. The University of Manchester is c ...

to study zoology.Aiyappan, A. (1951) Madras Government Museum Centenary Souvenir (1851-1951). pp. 39-50.

Indian Museum, Calcutta

Gravely graduated in 1906 and became a demonstrator at Manchester in 1907. He was elected to membership of the

Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society The Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, popularly known as the Lit. & Phil., is one of the oldest learned societies in the United Kingdom and second oldest provincial learned society (after the Spalding Gentlemen's Society). Promi ...

on 15 October 1907 https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e7/Memoirs_and_proceedings_of_the_Manchester_Literary_%26_Philosophical_Society_%28IA_memoirsproceedin55manc%29.pdf p xlix and gave his address as Natural History Dept., Indian Museum, Calcutta. He worked on collections made in the "Discovery" Antarctic Expedition along with S.J. Hickson and worked on Polychaete Larvae. In 1909 he was appointed Assistant Superintendent of the Indian Museum Calcutta. In 1914, still at Calcutta, he received his D.Sc. for the work on the Oriental

Passalidae Passalidae is a family of beetles known variously as "bessbugs", "bess beetles", "betsy beetles", "betsy bugs", or "horned passalus beetles". Nearly all of the 500-odd species are tropical; species found in North America are notable for their siz ...

. He unified the monographs of early observers with the notes of

Arrow An arrow is a fin-stabilized projectile launched by a bow. A typical arrow usually consists of a long, stiff, straight shaft with a weighty (and usually sharp and pointed) arrowhead attached to the front end, multiple fin-like stabilizers c ...

and Zang to bring to the oriental passalids (1914), and the family itself in general (1918), the classification that is in vogue today with minor alterations.

Government Museum, Madras

Dr. Gravely became the Superintendent of the Government Museum of Madras in 1920. Over the next two decades, he undertook the investigation of the

littoral The littoral zone, also called litoral or nearshore, is the part of a sea, lake, or river that is close to the shore. In coastal ecology, the littoral zone includes the intertidal zone extending from the high water mark (which is rarely i ...

fauna Fauna (: faunae or faunas) is all of the animal life present in a particular region or time. The corresponding terms for plants and fungi are ''flora'' and '' funga'', respectively. Flora, fauna, funga and other forms of life are collectively ...

of Krusadai Island,

Gulf of Mannar The Gulf of Mannar ( ) (; ) is a large shallow bay forming part of the Laccadive Sea in the Indian Ocean with an average depth of .Arachnida Arachnids are arthropods in the class Arachnida () of the subphylum Chelicerata. Arachnida includes, among others, spiders, scorpions, ticks, mites, pseudoscorpions, harvestmen, camel spiders, whip spiders and vinegaroons. Adult arachnids ...

'' and ''

Mollusca Mollusca is a phylum of protostome, protostomic invertebrate animals, whose members are known as molluscs or mollusks (). Around 76,000 extant taxon, extant species of molluscs are recognized, making it the second-largest animal phylum ...

'' significantly enhanced the collections of the museum in the two zoological groups. He was also responsible for enlarging the reserve collection, particularly of

Invertebrates Invertebrates are animals that neither develop nor retain a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''spine'' or ''backbone''), which evolved from the notochord. It is a paraphyletic grouping including all animals excluding the chordate subphylum ...

. Dr. Gravely contributed to the overall development of the museum as well. He, along with the Curator Dr. C. Sivaramamurti, ensured in 1938 that the antiquities and industrial art collected by the museum was organized effectively, into a collection that exists even today. The most important of Dr. Gravely's many contributions to the subject was the monograph he collaborated on with T. N. Ramachandran (Curator of Archaeology 1925–1935) on the scientific basis for identifying the period of metal images. Dr. Gravely also donated a variety of sculptures, carvings and bronzes to other institutions, including the

Prince of Wales Museum Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya, (CSMVS) formerly named the Prince of Wales Museum of Western India, is a museum in Mumbai (Bombay) which documents the history of India from prehistoric to modern times. It was founded during Bri ...

, the

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 ...

Museum and Dr. Ananda Coomaraswami's Museum in

Boston Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

. Dr. Gravely, and P V Mayuranathan considerably enhanced the

Herbarium A herbarium (plural: herbaria) is a collection of preserved plant biological specimen, specimens and associated data used for scientific study. The specimens may be whole plants or plant parts; these will usually be in dried form mounted on a sh ...

and the botanical collections of the museum. Dr. Gravely pioneered the preservation of bronzes collected by the museum. He initiated the electrolytic restoration process which has helped preserve not only bronze objects, but also ethnological, pre-historic and numismatic collections. He also built a separate Chemical Conservation Laboratory, the only one of its kind at the time, in 1937.

Other contributions

He was one of the Foundation Fellows of the National Institute of Sciences of India, now the apex scientific body in the country,

Indian National Science Academy The Indian National Science Academy (INSA) is a national academy in New Delhi New Delhi (; ) is the Capital city, capital of India and a part of the Delhi, National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT). New Delhi is the seat of all three b ...

. He also served as the Secretary to the

Asiatic Society The Asiatic Society is an organisation founded during the Company rule in India to enhance and further the cause of " Oriental research" (in this case, research into India and the surrounding regions). It was founded by the philologist Will ...

in the period 1915–18. His insect and spider collection is in the

, Calcutta. It notably contain insects,

Arachnida Arachnids are arthropods in the class Arachnida () of the subphylum Chelicerata. Arachnida includes, among others, spiders, scorpions, ticks, mites, pseudoscorpions, harvestmen, camel spiders, whip spiders and vinegaroons. Adult arachnids ...

and

Myriapoda Myriapods () are the members of subphylum Myriapoda, containing arthropods such as millipedes and centipedes. The group contains about 13,000 species, all of them terrestrial. Although molecular evidence and similar fossils suggests a diversifi ...

from limestone caves in Burma (1911), and oriental

Personal life

In 1925 he married Laura Balling and they had a daughter Ann Margaret (born 1928) and a son John Frederic (born 1931). He supported the

Toc H Toc H (also TH) is a registered charity and an international Christian movement. The name is an abbreviation for Talbot House, "Toc" signifying the letter T in the Royal Corps of Signals#History, signals spelling alphabet#History, spelling alpha ...

of which the first Indian branch was set up in the "Museum House".

Bibliography

*''Hydroid Zoophytes'' (F. H. Gravely and S. J. Hickson), Natural History Journal, 1907 *''Hydrozoa'', Proceedings and Transactions of the Liverpool Biological Society Vol XXII, 1908 *''Notes on the habits and distribution of Limnocnida indica'' (F. H. Gravely and S. P. Agharkar), 1912 *''Three genera of Papuan passalid Coleoptera'', Journal of the Zoological Museum Hamburg, XXX, 1913 *''Limestone caves of Burma and the Malay Peninsula'' (F. H. Gravely, N. Annandale and B. J. Coggin), Proceedings of the Asiatic Society of Bengal IX, 1913 *''Account of the oriental Passalidae (Coleoptera)'', Memoirs of the Indian Museum, III, 1914 *''Notes on the habits of Indian insects, myriapods and arachnids'', Records of the Indian Museum Calcutta II, 1915 *''Notes on Indian mygalomorph Spiders'', Records of the Indian Museum Calcutta II, 1915 *''Contribution to the revision of the Passalidae of the World'', Memoirs of the Indian Museum VII, 1918 *''A note on the marine invertebrate fauna of Chandipore, Orissa'', 1919 *''The spiders and scorpions of Barkuda Island'', Records of the Indian Museum XXII, 1921 *''Some Indian spiders of the subfamily Tetragnathinae'', Records of the Indian Museum XXII, 1921 *''Common Indian spiders'', Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society XXVIII, 1922 *''Some Indian spiders of the family Lycosidae'', Records of the Indian Museum XXVI, 1924 *''The Arachnida and Insecta sections (The littoral fauna of Krusadai Island)'', Bulletin of Madras Government Museum, 1927 *''Section on Orders Gymnoblastea and Calyptoblastea (The littoral fauna of Krusadai Island)'', Bulletin of Madras Government Museum, 1927 *''The Indian Species of the Genus Caralluma, Family : Asclepiadaceae'', (F. H. Gravely and P. V. Mayuranathan), 1931 *''Some Indian spiders of the families Ctenidae, Sparassidae, Selenopidae and Clubionidae'', Records of the Indian Museum XXXIII, 1931 *''Catalogue of Hindu Metal Images in the Government Museum, Madras'' (F. H. Gravely and T. N. Ramachandran), 1932 *''The Three Main Styles of Temple Architecture Recognised by Silpa Sastras'' (F. H. Gravely and T. N. Ramachandran), 1934 *''An Outline of Indian Temple Architecture'', 1936 *''An Introduction to South Indian Temple Architecture and Sculptures'' (F. H. Gravely and C. Sivaramamurti), 1939 *''Illustrations of Indian Sculptures Mostly Southern'' (F. H. Gravely and C. Sivaramamurti), 1939 *''Shells and Other Animal Remains Found on the Madras Beach'', Vol I, 1941 *''Shells and Other Animal Remains Found on the Madras Beach'', Vol II, 1942 *''Guide to the Archaeological Galleries'' (F. H. Gravely and C. Sivaramamurti), 1947 *''The Gopuras of Thiruvannamalai'', 1959 *''Notes on Hindu Images'' (F. H. Gravely and C. Sivaramamurti), 1977

References

*Krishnan, R. and Balaram, P. 2007. "Current Science: Some early history." ''Current Science'' 92(1):129-13
PDF
*

External links

Genera named by F H Gravely

A contribution towards the revision of the Passalidae of the world (1918)

An account of the Oriental Passalidae (Coleoptera) : based primarily on the collection in the Indian Museum (1914)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gravely, Frederick Henry Indian botanical writers Alumni of the Victoria University of Manchester English entomologists 1885 births 1965 deaths People from Wellingborough English botanical writers 20th-century British zoologists