Page 29 - Bulletin 2 1998

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the Museum. At the same time the Director of the Museum wanted to appoint a permanent,

full-time Curator of Marine Organisms and the final upshot was that Gilchrist was forced to
resign his Museum post in 1910. Keppel H. Barnard was appointed in his place, the most

prolific marine taxonomist South Africa has ever had.

At least the appointment of Keppel Barnard gave Gilchrist another marine scientist to talk to
and indeed Gilchrist collecting in the field and Barnard identifying his material and

describing new species made a superb team. The two men had much in common; both were

dedicated, energetic and enthusiastic and both were shy and self-effacing. It surprises me that
they never published together.

Gilchrist continued to live at the St. James aquarium, despite his break with the Museum, and

indeed he spent more and more time there as his expeditions in the Pieter Faure were greatly

restricted due to lack of government funds, and during 1909 the vessel did not put to sea at
all. The advent of Union in 1910 brought its own problems and no little confusion and this

was shortly followed by the outbreak of the First World War, during which the Pieter Faure
was commandeered by the Royal Navy. Gilchrist thus spent his time between the aquarium

and the Zoology Department.

In 1918 the South African College became the University of Cape Town and Gilchrist’s

position as head of the Zoology Department was confirmed. He was not, however, an ideal
head of department. According to his students, he was highly stimulating when lecturing on

marine topics but was dull and uninteresting when teaching anything else. His colleagues

reported that he lived in a world of his own, thinking only about the sea and what it
contained. Nothing else was of any importance to him.

This is not quite true, actually. He did find time to court and marry, late in life, Elfreda

Raubenheimer, of George. They lived at the St. James aquarium and Gilchrist’s son tells me
that both he and his sister were born there (although he does not remember in which tank!)

The son, Mr John T. Gilchrist of Los Angeles, remembers hide-and-seek games in the