Page 30 - Bulletin 2 1998

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aquarium, remembers his father playing the violin and singing to him “A frog that would a

‘wooing go”.

The marine survey, which had been largely an on/off affair during the first two decades of the

Century, picked up again after 1920, when the old Pieter Faure was replaced with a

converted whaler named the Pickle. (Fig. 2.7.) Gilchrist led new expeditions, as far afield as
Lourenco Marques (now Maputo) and Walvis Bay. His chief discovery during these years

was the rich population of hake off the west coast.

Gilchrist was now in his fifties and was beginning to mellow. He became kinder and more

tolerant, increasingly helpful towards young scientists. He also became increasingly absent-
minded. The story was told of him that, walking down St. George’s Street one day, he met a

lady who looked somewhat familiar. He raised his hat politely and attempted to pass,

whereupon the lady caught his arm and demanded “John, don’t you recognise your own
wife?” The story may, of course, be apocryphal but the fact that it was told and retold shows

that at least it was in character.

However, by the mid-1920s Gilchrist was a sick man and he was diagnosed as having
tuberculosis. His family was moved up-country so that they did not contract the disease, and

Gilchrist himself left for Europe to seek a cure. But this was before the days of antibiotics and

there was little hope for him. He returned to the Cape in July 1926 and continued to work at
the aquarium. He died there three months later, aged only 60, while still working in the

laboratory.