HARMER AND BELL: PLIOCENE BIVALVES OF GREAT BRITAIN – A ‘NEARLY’ MONOGRAPH

GEOSUFFOLK RIGS

17

HARMER AND BELL: PLIOCENE BIVALVES OF GREAT BRITAIN – A ‘NEARLY’ MONOGRAPH R. MARKHAM This is the story of how Frederick William Harmer, born in Norwich on 24 April 1835, and Alfred Bell, born in Marylebone, London, on 28 June 1835, became the leading palaeontologists of the Crag during the early 20th Century and how, in their mid-eighties, they were still gathering information for a further major publication.

Frederick Harmer

Alfred Bell

Their earliest geological work was presented at the 1868 meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in Norwich. Harmer reported on his study of glacial deposits (in co-operation with Searles Wood Junior) whilst Bell read a paper on the Molluscan Fauna of the Red Crag. The next year Harmer had a paper on the Crag of Belaugh and Weybourne, Norfolk, published in the Geological Magazine. In 1870 and 1871 Bell was naming new species in the Annals and Magazine of Natural History, work which brought him to the attention of Searles Wood Senior, author of the Palaeontographical Society’s Monograph of the Crag Mollusca 1848–1882.

Harmer spent his working life in the family business of textile manufacturer and wool merchant in Norwich, whilst in public life he was Mayor of the City of Norwich 1887–1888. Bell earned his living compiling scientific and educational handbooks and catalogues.

Following a disagreement with his political colleagues in Norwich, Harmer returned to studying the Crag, reading a paper on the Molluscan Fauna of the Coralline Crag at the British Association meeting in Ipswich in 1895.

The invention of the motor car gave him a new lease of life for geological field work, especially for the excavations of the Crag at Little Oakley, Essex, where he ‘obtained between six and seven hundred species and well-marked varieties’. This included material additional to Searles Wood’s classic

Trans. Suffolk Nat. Soc. 43 (2007)

18

Suffolk Natural History, Vol. 43

monograph. Following the death of his wife in 1908, Harmer devoted himself to work on ‘The Pliocene Mollusca of Great Britain’, issued by the Palaeontographical Society, the first part being published in 1914.

Advancing age had not been kind to Bell’s circumstances, but in about 1909 Ipswich Museum employed him to arrange the Crag collection according to the latest research. When his position became known to Harmer, Bell was able to contribute the section on non-marine molluscs to the ‘Pliocene Mollusca’. Harmer acknowledged Bell’s work on Crag deposits with the name Anomalosipho belli for a gastropod from the Red Crag of Butley, Suffolk. Bell also named new species from the pre-Crag Boxstone sandstone, including (Geological Magazine 1917 and 1918) Cardium woolnoughi, after Frank Woolnough, Curator of Ipswich Museum.

Frederick Harmer died on 11 April 1923 aged 87, at his residence, Oakland House, Cringleford, near Norwich. The ‘Pliocene Mollusca’ dealt with gastropods and was completed in September 1924 when Bell wrote the preface to the final part. Harmer and Bell intended to write a joint Monograph on Bivalves, but this was not to be.

Harmer’s notes remained in manuscript. Proposed new species included Cardita incerta (from the Crag of Little Oakley) and new varieties included Pecten maximus var. tenuis. A note with the latter states ‘I have noticed a similar specimen from Sutton in the Museum of the Jardin des Plantes at Paris’, a reminder of his visits to European collections. Bell worked on the Pliocene, Pleistocene and Recent Oysters. The Recent specimens were figured in the Essex Naturalist 1920; newly named species included Ostrea foulnessii and Ostrea canveyensis from Foulness, Essex. His Crag Oysters, preserved in Ipswich Museum, include ‘new’ species Ostrea moorei and Ostrea packardi, names that have remained in manuscript.

Alfred Bell died at Ipswich in December 1925 aged 90 years; the funeral was held at Bramford Church.

R Markham, 28 Balliol Close Woodbridge Suffolk IP12 4EQ

Trans. Suffolk Nat. Soc. 43 (2007)