Page 32 - KBHA BULLETIN 2

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Gilchrist’s Legacy and his Successors

Gilchrist is rightly referred to as “the father of South African marine science.” It is not just

that he was the first such scientist in the country. He never lost sight of his aim to correlate

the distribution of the fauna with physical oceanographic conditions and this has had a very
far-reaching influence on subsequent developments. He pointed the Zoology Department of

the University of Cape Town in the direction which was to lead to its recognition as an

international centre of excellence, the South African Museum has never since been without
marine taxonomists, and he founded what was to become the Sea Fisheries Research Institute.

Gilchrist was replaced at the University of Cape Town by the brilliant but highly eccentric

and unpredictable Lancelot Hogben, who was not a marine biologist but a physiologist.
Hogben had Gilchrist’s type specimens removed to the St. James aquarium and threw the rest

of his collection out of the window, declaring “this is not Zoology!” Regrettably, Gilchrist’s

notes and records appear to have been lost at the same time. A temporary Custodian of the
aquarium was appointed - possibly a postgraduate student.

Hogben was extremely unpopular at the University and student dissatisfaction reached a peak

when they burnt Hogben in effigy on the steps of the Zoology Department. On another

occasion they rolled his car down the embankment where the Physics building now stands.
Hogben was also at loggerheads with Cecil von Bonde, who had been appointed the first

Director of Sea Fisheries in 1926. Von Bonde had, in fact, been a student of Gilchrist’s. With

this appointment, the St. James aquarium was relinquished by the Museum and reverted to
Sea Fisheries. Von Bonde, possibly at dead of night, quietly removed the whole of the

Zoology Department‘s library to the aquarium and set himself up in charge. In 1929 the
British Association for the Advancement of Science came to Cape Town and Hogben invited

some of the distinguished visiting scientists to see something of the South African marine

fauna at the St. James aquarium. Von Bonde got wind of this and decided to repay Hogben
for the many insults he had received. So when the train bearing the visitors arrived at St.

James, they found the doors to the aquarium locked. Von Bonde looked down on them from

an upper window and chuckled as they had to wait on the station for the return train to Cape
Town.