Page 23 - Bulletin 2 1998

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biologist to the staff of their Department of Agriculture to investigate the fisheries potential of

our waters. Their choice fell on the young Scottish biologist, Dr. John D. Gilchrist. (Fig. 2.1.)

The Work of John Gilchrist

John Dow Fisher Gilchrist was educated at the Universities of St Andrews and Edinburgh but

took his PhD degree in Zurich. At the time of his appointment to the Cape of Good Hope he

was assistant lecturer at the University of Edinburgh. He arrived at the Cape in 1896, as South
Africa’s very first resident marine scientist, and the following year brought out to the Cape a

Scottish-built trawler, which was renamed the Pieter Faure. (Fig. 2.2.) With this vessel he

roamed the sea looking for exploitable fish stocks. A major breakthrough came in 1899, when
he discovered the rich population of sole off Mossel Bay. As a result of this discovery,

commercial trawling began in 1900.

Gilchrist was officially commended for his work but not everyone was pleased with it. Some
of those in authority were alarmed at the cost of his expeditions, while fishermen were afraid

that trawling would deplete fish stocks, as these were (as always) said to be declining.

Although Gilchrist saw as his chief duty the promoting of the Cape’s fishery potential, he was
not content to confine himself to this activity. On the contrary, he was interested in every

aspect of marine science and wherever he went in the Pieter Faure he collected the bottom

fauna, both vertebrate and invertebrate, he measured temperatures and salinities at each
station and attempted to map the currents by means of drift bottles. He also collected fish

eggs and larvae.

It was this latter activity which led to the creation of the St. James aquarium. He tried to

persuade the Department of Agriculture that he needed an aquarium to study the development
of fishes from the egg through their larval stages and that this was important in assessing the

recruitment of fish stocks. The Department took some persuading. But although Gilchrist was
a shy man, somewhat reticent and self-effacing, he was also extremely determined and could

be obstinate when he deemed it necessary. So, after much financial bickering, the Department