Richard Hawksworth Barnes FLS (1831–1904) was a British meteorologist and naturalist, who spent time working as a coffee grower in Ceylon (now

Sri Lanka Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, also known historically as Ceylon, is an island country in South Asia. It lies in the Indian Ocean, southwest of the Bay of Bengal, separated from the Indian subcontinent, ...

), where he collected specimens for the

British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...

. The snake species '' Boiga barnesii'' is named in his honour.

Early life

Barnes was born in 1831 in

Colombo Colombo, ( ; , ; , ), is the executive and judicial capital and largest city of Sri Lanka by population. The Colombo metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of 5.6 million, and 752,993 within the municipal limits. It is the ...

Ceylon Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, also known historically as Ceylon, is an island country in South Asia. It lies in the Indian Ocean, southwest of the Bay of Bengal, separated from the Indian subcontinent, ...

, the youngest son of Maria, née Fawkes, daughter of Walter Fawkes, and her husband, the then

Governor of Ceylon {{Use dmy dates, date=November 2019 The governor of Ceylon can refer to historical vice-regal representatives of three colonial powers: Portuguese Ceylon * List of captains of Portuguese Ceylon (1518–1551) * List of captain-majors of Portugue ...

, Edward Barnes. He spent many of his early years at the Fawkes' family seat, Farnley Hall, near

Otley Otley is a market town and civil parish at a bridging point on the River Wharfe, in the City of Leeds metropolitan borough in West Yorkshire, England. Historically a part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, the population was 13,668 at the 2011 c ...

, Yorkshire. He was subsequently educated at

Eton College Eton College ( ) is a Public school (United Kingdom), public school providing boarding school, boarding education for boys aged 13–18, in the small town of Eton, Berkshire, Eton, in Berkshire, in the United Kingdom. It has educated Prime Mini ...

and studied mathematics at

Trinity College, Cambridge Trinity College is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any ...

, taking the

Mathematical Tripos The Mathematical Tripos is the mathematics course that is taught in the Faculty of Mathematics, University of Cambridge, Faculty of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge. Origin In its classical nineteenth-century form, the tripos was a di ...

and becoming 38th Wrangler (i.e. obtaining

first class honours The British undergraduate degree classification system is a grading structure used for undergraduate degrees or bachelor's degrees and integrated master's degrees in the United Kingdom. The system has been applied, sometimes with significant var ...

) in 1853.

Career

In 1852, Barnes obtained a position as a "coffee planter" in Ceylon, where West-Indian style coffee cultivation had been introduced by his father in 1824. While there, he carried out the study of meteorology, botany and herpetology. He was elected a

Fellow of the Linnean Society of London 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 ...

in April 1863. ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British Newspaper#Daily, daily Newspaper#National, national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its modern name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its si ...

'' noted:

He collected specimens for the

(these are now in the

Natural History Museum, London The Natural History Museum in London is a museum that exhibits a vast range of specimens from various segments of natural history. It is one of three major museums on Exhibition Road in South Kensington, the others being the Science Museum (Lo ...

).Natural History Museum register Among the specimens he collected were the

types Type may refer to: Science and technology Computing * Typing, producing text via a keyboard, typewriter, etc. * Data type, collection of values used for computations. * File type * TYPE (DOS command), a command to display contents of a file. * Ty ...

of two species of snake, '' Dendrelaphis caudolineolatus'' (originally ''Dendrophis caudolineolata'') and '' Boiga barnesii'' (also known as Barnes' cat snake). They were described, and the latter named (as ''Dipsas barnesii'') in Barnes' honour, by

Albert Günther Albert Karl Ludwig Gotthilf Günther , also Albert Charles Lewis Gotthilf Günther (3October 18301February 1914), was a German-born British zoologist, ichthyologist, and herpetologist. Günther is ranked the second-most productive reptile tax ...

in 1869.

Personal life and death

On 29 November 1866 Barnes married Cecilia Freckleton (née Waring), a widow, becoming step-father to her daughter Alice Marie Freckleton. At that time his address was given as " Gannoruwa estate,

Peradeniya Peradeniya (; ) is a suburb of the city of Kandy, Sri Lanka with about 30,000 inhabitants. It is situated on the A1 main road, a few kilometres west of Kandy city centre. Peradeniya's name is derived from ''pera'' (guava) and ''deniya'' (a plain ...

". He returned to England in 1867 when his address was given as "40 Kensington Park Gardens, London W.". He later lived at

Parkstone Parkstone is an area of Poole, in the Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole district, in the ceremonial county of Dorset, England. It is divided into 'Lower' and 'Upper' Parkstone. Upper Parkstone – "Up-on-'ill" as it used to be known in ...

, Dorset, from where he contributed regular meteorological readings to his local newspaper, the ''Parkstone Reminder''. Richard Hawksworth Barnes gravestone

Barnes died at his home, Heatherland House, in Parkstone, on 27 February 1904, aged 73. Obituaries were published in ''

'', ''Tropical Agriculturist'', the ''Parkstone Reminder'', and a number of other regional newspapers. He was buried at St Petert Peter's Church, the parish church of Parkstone. He was survived by Cecilia.

Notes

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Barnes, Richard Hawksworth 1831 births 1904 deaths People from Otley People from British Ceylon People from Parkstone People educated at Eton College Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge British meteorologists 19th-century British botanists British herpetologists Fellows of the Linnean Society of London