Colonel Samuel Richard Tickell (19 August 1811 – 20 April 1875) was an English soldier, artist, linguist and ornithologist in

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

and

Burma Myanmar, officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar; and also referred to as Burma (the official English name until 1989), is a country in northwest Southeast Asia. It is the largest country by area in Mainland Southeast Asia and ha ...

Biography

Tickell was born at

Cuttack Cuttack (, or officially Kataka in Odia language, Odia ), is the former capital, deputy capital and the 2nd largest city of the Indian state of Odisha. It is also the headquarters of the Cuttack district. The name of the city is an anglicised f ...

in India to Captain Samuel Tickell (of the 8th regiment of the

Bengal Native Infantry The regiments of Bengal Native Infantry, alongside the regiments of Bengal European Infantry, were the regular infantry components of the East India Company's Bengal Army from the raising of the first Native battalion in 1757 to the passing in ...

) and Mary née Morris. His grandfather was Richard Tickell the English playwright and satirist. Lieutenant General Richard Tickell was a first cousin once removed. Samuel Tickell was educated in England with a training at

Addiscombe Addiscombe is an area of south London, England, within the London Borough of Croydon. It is located south of Charing Cross, and is situated north of Coombe and Selsdon, east of Croydon town centre, south of Woodside, and west of Shirley. ...

from 1827 to 1829, returning at age nineteen to join the

in 1829. He served in the 31st Bengal Native Infantry during the Kol campaign (1832–33). He was made commander of Brian Hodgson's military escort to

Kathmandu Kathmandu () is the capital and largest city of Nepal, situated in the central part of the country within the Kathmandu Valley. As per the 2021 Nepal census, it has a population of 845,767 residing in 105,649 households, with approximately 4 mi ...

from 1834. He returned to Bengal in 1843, and after his promotion to captain in 1847 he was moved to Arakan, lower Burma. He applied to serve as revenue surveyor in Bhagalpur in 1848 but found himself without experience and let his assistants work on surveys while he carried out administrative duties. The survey work was ridden with errors and in 1849 he handed over charge and returned to Arakan. During his time in India, Tickell made important contributions to the country's ornithology and mammalology, with field observations and the collections of specimens. He contributed to volume 17 of the '' Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal''. Volume 18 included a report by Tickell from Burma. He wrote under the pen-name of "Ornithognomon" and "Old Log". Hume noted that many of the notes written as "Ornithognomon" in the ''Field'' were based on observations of another amateur ornithologist, Frederic Wilson. Tickell married Maria Georgiana, daughter of J.W. Templer at

Bankura Bankura () is a city and a municipality in the state of West Bengal, India. It is the headquarters of the Bankura district. Etymology It comes from the old Austric word ráŕhá or ráŕho which means “land of red soil”.P.R. Sarkar Rarh - ...

on 11 July 1844. Tickell retired in 1865 and lived for a period in France before settling in the

Channel Islands The Channel Islands are an archipelago in the English Channel, off the French coast of Normandy. They are divided into two Crown Dependencies: the Jersey, Bailiwick of Jersey, which is the largest of the islands; and the Bailiwick of Guernsey, ...

. In 1870, while fishing on the coast of Brittany, he suffered an eye inflammation which eventually made him blind. Tickell had been working on a seven-volume work entitled ''Illustrations of Indian Ornithology'', but his deteriorating eyesight forced him to abandon it. Before his death he donated the unfinished work to the

Zoological Society of London The Zoological Society of London (ZSL) is a charity and organization devoted to the worldwide animal conservation, conservation of animals and their habitat conservation, habitats. It was founded in 1826. Since 1828, it has maintained London Zo ...

. These works were bound into fourteen volumes. These included one on ''the fishes collected in the seas and freshwaters of British Burma from 1851-64'' with watercolour illustrations, a field of study which had been examined by very few fish taxonomists, the earliest work being by

Francis Day Francis Talbot Day (2 March 1829 – 10 July 1889) was an army surgeon and naturalist in the Madras Presidency who later became the Inspector-General of Fisheries in British Raj, India and British rule in Burma, Burma. A pioneer ichthyologist, ...

; a volume on mammals (214 pages); a volume on ''insects, reptiles, amphibians, arachnids and crustaceans'' (256 pages); and the remaining volumes on birds. Of these seven volumes were titled ''Indian Ornithology'' and included 276 species illustrated of a total of 488 species described. In addition there were two volumes titled ''Tickell Aves'' with descriptions and watercolour illustrations which were based on two draft volumes of ''Tickell Aves MS'' I & II. The work showcased his excellent artistic abilities, including paintings of birds in natural habitats as well as ink vignettes showing scenes from Indian life. Tickell died in

Cheltenham Cheltenham () is a historic spa town and borough adjacent to the Cotswolds in Gloucestershire, England. Cheltenham became known as a health and holiday spa town resort following the discovery of mineral springs in 1716, and claims to be the mo ...

. A number of birds were named after Tickell, including: * Tickell's flowerpecker, ''Dicaeum erythrorhynchos'' * Tickell's leaf warbler, ''Phylloscopus affinis'' * Tickell's thrush, ''Turdus unicolor'' * Tickell's brown hornbill, ''Anorrhinus tickelli''; and possibly one species after his wife, given the feminine or plural form (i.e. honouring the Tickell couple), though this isn't made clear in the original description: * Tickell's blue flycatcher, ''Cyornis tickelliae''. Tickell was also interested in linguistics and wrote a series of articles on the grammatical structure of the

Ho language Ho (, Warang Chiti: ) is a Munda language of the Austroasiatic language family spoken primarily in India by about 2.2 million people (0.202% of India's population) per the 2001 census. It is spoken by the Ho, Munda, Kolha and Kol tribal ...

Notes

References

*''Biographies for Birdwatchers'', Mearns and Mearns
Ibis Jubilee Supplement 1908
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tickell, Samuel 1811 births 1875 deaths English ornithologists British Indian Army officers British East India Company Army officers British mammalogists Bengal Native Infantry English zoologists English soldiers English artists Linguists from England Graduates of Addiscombe Military Seminary