In the south-east corner of Heene Cemetery is the grave of John Tillyard (1842–1922), a solicitor who was born in Norwich and subsequently lived in Worthing’s Rowlands Road. The inscription reads, “In loving memory of John Joseph Tillyard died 19th April 1922 in his 80th year R.I.P.” He and his wife, Mary Anne Frances, had four children, the oldest of which was Robert John Tillyard (1881–1937).
Robert John migrated to Australia at the age of 22, and stayed there for the rest of his life. It is not known whether he returned to England for his father’s (or mother’s) funeral(s).
As one of our researchers notes, Robert John Tillyard (aka ‘Robin’) went on to become a world authority on insects, and particularly on dragonflies, lacewings and scorpion flies. His The Biology of Dragonflies, published by Cambridge University Press in 1917, is still regarded as a classic text among entomologists, and his The Insects of Australia and New Zealand became a standard text-book for students of entomology in that part of the world.
Thanks to the Internet Archive, scans of Tillyard’s work are available online. (One can even find the physical volumes themselves too, albeit at a price.) Tillyard makes clear in the book’s preface that “almost all of the specimens studied and figured have been collected around Sydney”, but a separate chapter is included that deals exclusively with British species of the Odonata class (of dragonflies and damselflies). The book was completed in 1915 and published two years later, amazingly amid the First World War. Although published in 1917, the volume seems almost contemporary over a hundred years later, with illustrations that are not dissimilar to today’s field guides.
It is worth quoting part of the author’s preface at some length:
The sending of the original MS. (manuscript), figures and plates, three sets of galley-proofs and three sets of page-proofs (involving in all a total of some fifty packets and letters), to and fro between England and Australia in these troublous times, without the loss of a single item, is an achievement which I cannot let pass without offering my grateful thanks to all who were responsible for it.
Robert John Tillyard, the preface to The Biology of Dragonflies; Cambridge University Press, 1917.
The book’s preface also draws attention to the larval adaptations of the class’s aquatic way of living as providing an interest unequalled in the insect world. As such, the book became “the definitive work on the biology of odonates”.
Tillyard’s The Insects of Australia and New Zealand was published in Australia by Angus & Robertson in 1926. The book’s Latin epigram was “Omnibus qui in minimis mira naturae perquirunt”: to all who inquire into the smallest wonders of nature. The author’s Classics background didn’t just furnish him with the ability to master the Linnaean binomial system!
The preface to this 560-page volume elaborates on the illustrations; they were outlined in pencil by Tillyard, then completed in “wash and colour work” by his wife. A blizzard of specialists across Australia and New Zealand is cited as having provided helpful criticism, even specimens, suggesting that much travel and fieldwork was involved.
There’s a nice blog post from the team of undergraduates, masters students, curators and biologists at Sydney University’s Haswell Zoology Museum that gives a shout-out to R. J. Tillyard. In “Everyone resigned”, we see Australian Entomologist R. J. Tillyard display several slides from the museum, two of which show Tillyard himself, besuited in both, with hat and walking stick in one. There is also an appreciation of Tillyard’s The Biology of Dragonflies, written to mark the book’s 100th anniversary, which one can find on the website of the International Union for Conservation of Nature. The snapshot verdict is that the book is:
A goldmine of information and a masterpiece that played a great role in founding our current knowledge of the life of odonates.
Centennial celebration of ‘The Biology of Dragonflies’ by Tillyard (1917), the IUCN website
In a paper published by Wiley, “A century on from The Biology of Dragonflies by Tillyard 1917: what have we learned since then?” by Khelifa, Theischinger and Endersby one can find a schematic drawing illustrating the history of odonatology (the study of dragonflies and damselflies). As the timeline of scientific knowledge advances, one can see four eras. The second is the Tillyard era. It spans from 1917 to 1962.
Who would have imagined that in a quiet graveyard in urban Worthing lies a man whose eldest son became such a leading light in the study of these wonderful insects? We should try to remember this whenever we are buzzed by one of the dragonflies and damselflies that we occasionally see there.
Written by Rob Tomlinson
