Beatrix Potter

by Linda Lear

  Wanting to make sure that she had not overlooked anything that George Murray at the museum might know about lichens, she took one of hers, albeit an old specimen, to the museum one afternoon to ask him to identify it. After examining it Murray told her it was not a lichen at all, but another jelly-like fungus. Rather than contradict him, Beatrix enquired about his views on Schwendener’s theory and why it was that whenever there were lichens, there always seemed to be algae close by. Neither Murray nor Miss Smith was in sympathy with the idea of symbiosis, and Beatrix’s suggestion that a symbiotic connection might exist ended the discussion. Beatrix was amused by their reaction, noting Murray’s ‘contemptuous’ attitude toward ‘old-fashioned lichenologists’. But she acknowledged her own stubbornness: ‘Upon the subject of chlorophyll, and symbiosis I am afraid I am unpleasant.’ This visit to the Natural History Museum convinced her that no one else was ‘at it’. She was correct, no one was.44

  Early in January 1897 Beatrix went back to Kew. She was so anxious about the renewal of her research ticket that when she saw the director at a distance, she hid behind a bush. In the Herbarium, however, she discovered that Massee was now growing one of her best moulds. The two had a cordial, but vague, discussion of lichens. The encounter confirmed her suspicion that the Kew botanists were approaching the problem of lichens by way of plant morphology, and that their ‘cut and dried’ theories prevented them from seeing the thing in a new way. Including Roscoe as a co-conspirator, she wrote: ‘We as outsiders express a pleasing, fresh irreverence for the leading botanical authorities, it really does seem very impertinent, but the things are there. It may just be that one sees them because one has an open mind, not in a groove.’45

  Beatrix and Bertram visited Uncle Harry at Woodcote over the holidays where Roscoe suggested that Professor Ward, the Cambridge botanist, should read her paper even though he might find her thesis as heretical as Thiselton-Dyer had. Roscoe also warned her about the possibility of other scientists ‘poaching’ her conclusions and submitting them as their own. Beatrix’s reaction was naive but generous, for she had come to like Massee. ‘I do not in the least suspect that mild gentleman…’ she wrote, ‘but if he casually put them into his books I should wish to have an acknowledgment.’46

  A few days later Beatrix shared her theory with McIntosh. After asking for some specific fungi, she explained,

  I am doing some curious work with fungus spore, trying to draw up a paper with the assistance of my uncle Sir H. Roscoe. Have you ever suspected that there are intermediate species amongst Agarics and Boleti? We are strongly of the opinion for certain good reasons, that there are mixed fungi — that is to say — either growing actually upon a mixed network of mycelium, or else hybrid species which have originated in that way. I do not express any opinion which way, only that they are intermediate. Of course such an idea is contrary to the books, except for lichens but I should be curious to hear whether you have had difficulty in naming any of the sorts which I suspect.

  She ended her letter asking the question which she should have posed at the outset: ‘Do you know anything about lichens?’47

  McIntosh responded quickly with what must have been a lengthy and important letter on the larch disease. Beatrix replied that she had found the new fungus, the hybrid, again, but that she was frustrated that she did not have enough lichen spores to experiment with. She needed to germinate more spores and to establish chlorophyll lines to prove that a lichen could survive by itself. In all fairness to Beatrix and to Schwendener, the exact nature of the symbiotic relationship remained in doubt for nearly a century more.48

  Uncle Harry made no further changes in her paper beyond exclaiming that there was one point he could not understand. But Beatrix was ready to defend her conclusions. Her last word on Thiselton-Dyer’s behaviour was unrepentant. She suspected he was ‘something of a misogynist’. Observing the women gardeners at Kew in their ridiculous dress, Beatrix felt that his denigration of her science was not unrelated to her gender. Still smarting from his high-handed treatment, almost the last entry in her journal reads: ‘it is odious to a shy person to be snubbed as conceited, especially when the shy person happened to be right, and under the temptation of sauciness.’ And with that outspoken opinion, Beatrix Potter’s fifteen-year journal ends, but not the controversy over fungi, lichens, hybrids and symbiosis.49

  Beatrix continued germinating spores of the agarics and studying the resulting moulds over the next six weeks. She kept exact records of the germination process, getting up through the night to check her specimens, and at one period drawing the germinating basidiomycetes spores every six hours at 600 x magnification. Near the end of February McIntosh sent her two parcels; one included some spores of hepatics which Brefeld thought derived from lichens. After germinating some of these, Beatrix summarized what she knew and where she was still in doubt.50

  The thing which causes so much contradiction is that I succeeded in sprouting the mushroom spore, which I supposed is what it is meant for; but it seems that no one else is admitted to have done it, and therefore no one except my uncle & one gentleman at Kew will believe that any of my slides are right. I have grown between 40 & 50 sorts of spore, but I think we shall probably only send in A. velutipes, which I have grown twice and Mr Massee has also grown according to my direction at Kew… I am just as much sure of the mushroom but unless I can get a good slide actually sprouting it seems useless to send it to the Linnean.

  More realistic than she had been about the possibility of scientific ‘theft’, Beatrix cautioned her Scottish mentor, ‘I should be obliged if you would not mention it to anyone concerned with botany, until the paper is really sent, because without meaning to be uncivil they [by which she surely meant Massee, Murray and Smith] are more inclined to grow the things themselves than to admit that mine are right.’51

  Beatrix had realistically assessed the impediments to her success. Her working conditions in the kitchen of Bolton Gardens were primitive at best. She may have used Petri dishes occasionally, as several drawings show the mould or moss growing inside one, but it is obvious she had difficulty keeping her slides clean. In several of her microscopic drawings errant mould cells are clearly present. Beatrix realized that the possible contamination of her slides seriously undermined her conclusions. But she had gone beyond stopping. When Massee succeeded in sprouting several of her spores, he conceded that her results were probably more accurate than he initially thought. Forthwith he appears to have become her conduit, if not her champion, to the Linnean Society and submitted her paper to the general secretary who recorded it as paper number 2978 on 18 March 1897.52

  The general membership of the Society met at seven o’clock on Tuesday evening, 1 April 1897 with President Albert C. L. G. Gunther in the chair. The business of the meeting was the reading of a paper, ‘On the Germination of the Spores of Agaricineae by Miss Helen B. Potter’, and the presentation of several exhibits by five distinguished fellows, including Thiselton-Dyer and George Murray. Since women were not allowed to be members or to participate in the meetings, Beatrix was not present. Her paper was most likely offered by Massee. Afterwards, together with any slide drawings as exhibits, it was ‘laid on the table’ where it could be examined. Although there is no specific evidence that slide drawings accompanied her paper, one may safely assume they did since they were crucial to her argument, and her paper could hardly have been taken seriously without them. The decision to publish any paper was made by the Council. But Beatrix’s paper was never taken nearly that seriously.53

  ‘Laid on the table’ had the specialized meaning in Linnean Society parlance of the time of ‘received but not seriously considered in open forum’. In short, while Beatrix’s paper was read at least in part, no substantive notice was given to it. This was certainly not Massee’s fault, indeed that he had got her paper on the agenda was remarkable in itself. But like other women at the time who attempted to gain a hearing for their scientific research at the Linnean, Beatrix’s theori
es were never seriously considered.

  Not surprisingly, a week after its presentation, the Minutes for the Council Meeting of 8 April 1897 record that a proposal on behalf of Miss Helen Potter to withdraw paper No. 2978 ‘On the Germination of the Spores of the Agaricineae’ was sanctioned. Massee would have been the proper person to request the paper’s withdrawal on her behalf.54

  It was not until September that Beatrix reported her Linnean adventure to Charlie McIntosh. ‘My paper was read at the Linnean Society, and “well received” according to Mr Massee, but they say it requires more work in it before it is printed.’ She felt no need to tell him that she had withdrawn it, for that would have been the normal practice. What Massee told Beatrix after the meeting, and what he meant by ‘well received but requires more work’, is unknown. Clearly he handled a delicate situation sensitively without hurting her feelings. Her decision to withdraw her paper can be explained simply as a reflection of her desire to do further work on it. She undoubtedly suspected that some of the hyphae she had drawn were moulds and not basidio spores, as this had been a continuing problem. Accuracy then, rather than despair or pique, explains her action.55

  Over the next two years Beatrix produced nearly seventy more microscopic drawings. In her last extant letter to McIntosh of September 1897 Beatrix wrote, ‘I am trying to work out the moulds = [sic] conidia forms, of the mushrooms; exceedingly difficult to grow. I find no difficulty in sprouting the mycelium of any fungus but the “spawn” is so very difficult to run. If I am right it will be possible to work out which of the Boleti are hybrids, but it will take many years at the present rate!’ There is nothing in this letter to suggest that she had lost interest in the problem. But her estimate of the difficulty and of the time it would require was accurate.56

  Potter’s coded journal, her correspondence with McIntosh, and her efforts to gain a hearing for her theories from the scientific professionals had ended by the autumn of 1897, but the question of how the adventure affected her or what became of her Linnean paper continues to fuel speculation and controversy. There is no evidence as to how much longer Beatrix worked on the problem of germination, when she last used her ticket at Kew, or if she had further association with Massee. Most intriguing of all, her paper ‘On the Germination of the Spores of Agaricineae’, either as it was presented or any later revision, has never been found. Most likely it was destroyed inadvertently and is beyond recovery.57

  The Linnean Society did not reject Potter’s paper because they never seriously considered it. The paper was properly communicated and properly withdrawn. Suggestions that Beatrix abandoned her research in despair, that Thiselton-Dyer or Murray pressured her to withdraw it, or that the outcome would have been different had someone with more prestige than Massee sponsored her, miss the fact that Beatrix was too insignificant a player for the botanical establishment to be concerned with. To have noticed her would only have called more attention to her unwelcome and unproven theories, and perpetuated the intrusions of Sir Henry. The establishment scientists simply discounted her research and ignored her conclusions. They were later proved wrong. That they were antagonistic to her as a woman and as an amateur goes without saying, and their bad manners account for the Linnean Society’s official ‘apology’ for the sins of historic sexism a century later.58

  When Beatrix began painting fungi seriously in 1892, encouraged by McIntosh’s enthusiasm, she may well have had the idea of making a collection of one or several species, thinking that in time these might be used as illustrations for a book on fungi by some expert mycologist. But by 1897 she was aware that most of her paintings were of species found in Scotland and not representative of fungi of the British Isles. In January she agreed to McIntosh’s request to exhibit some of the paintings she had sent to him over the years at an upcoming natural history meeting in Scotland, but she wished they were ‘better worth lending’. In March, about the time she would have been putting the finishing touches on her Linnean paper, she wrote a picture letter to young Walter Frederick Gaddum, known as ‘Jim’, the five-year-old son of her cousin Edith, explaining, ‘I have been drawing funguses very hard, I think some day they will be put in a book but it will be a dull one to read.’ This was a plausible, but vague objective, as she knew of no one other than Massee or McIntosh who might write such a book.59

  Beatrix took pride in her work, and certainly wanted an acknowledgement of it, but there is no evidence that she had any ambition to be recognized by the scientific community as a mycologist, or that she wished for a life devoted to scientific enquiry. By comparison to her contemporaries, women like Margaret Gatty, Marianne North or Eleanor Ormerod, even her cousin Mary Hutton, who were energetically devoting themselves to natural science or to the illustration of it despite inherent gender prejudice, Beatrix’s efforts, while remarkable, show nothing of the same level of commitment. Beatrix attempted to obtain a hearing for her scientific observations at a time when the line of demarcation between amateur and professional scientist was newly drawn and jealously defended. She was not singled out for mistreatment. Her experience was the norm, not the exception.60

  In most ways Beatrix Potter’s foray into professional mycology was completely accidental. She loved painting fungi and she was curious about how they grew. Charles McIntosh was content to help her with identification and taxonomy so she could be more accurate in her illustration. It is hard to imagine that Beatrix would have gone so far into the study of mycology without his encouragement, his baskets of fresh specimens from Scotland, or his patient teaching. Without him she would have remained simply a painter of beautiful ‘funguses’. It might well have ended there too if the experts at Kew had not been threatened by the questions of a bright amateur, and if her competitive and adversarial uncle, her other mentor, had not taken personal umbrage and thrust her into a world where no woman of her background and qualifications could possibly have been successful. Roscoe led Beatrix to the inner circles of the scientific establishment, where she acquitted herself well, but it was never a place she herself aspired to be. That she had the ‘mind of a professional scientist and biologist’, as one modern writer has claimed, may be overstating, but without question, Beatrix Potter was a brilliant amateur.61

  If Beatrix had defined a goal for her life by 1898 it was essentially what it had always been: to find something useful to do with her talents, and to gain a measure of economic and personal independence. She had explored scientific illustration and research and found that, however intriguing, it could not satisfy that end. Pragmatic as she was, she moved on with events, shaping those she could. But she retained from her experience a certain cynicism about professional science.62

  Beatrix appreciated Roscoe’s mentoring. When Roscoe and Lunt published their popular chemistry textbook First Steps in Chemistry in 1899, Beatrix celebrated the occasion with a wonderfully amusing, intricate drawing of little mice working diligently in a laboratory filled with test tubes. Her painting, entitled ‘A Dream of Toasted Cheese’, featured a learned, bespectacled avuncular mouse perched on a Bunsen burner reading the new textbook, while in the lower left corner she made reference to the compound NH3 (ammonia gas), writing: ‘The peculiar pungent smell of this compound is noticed if we heat a bit of CHEESE in a test-tube.’ Uncle Harry included it in his autobiography, acknowledging his talented niece as the artist.63

  Time has been far kinder to Beatrix’s scientific efforts than her contemporaries were. When she tied up her portfolios of fungi paintings with ribbons many years later, she could not have known that her conclusions about the symbiotic nature of lichens and the hybridization of fungi would later be proved and accepted. Nor could she imagine that her watercolours are considered so accurate that modern mycologists refer to them still to identify fungi. Her ephemeral hope that her drawings might some day illustrate a book by an expert mycologist was realized in 1967 when W. P. K. Findlay, a past president of the British Mycological Society, used fifty-nine of them in his volume for the ‘Wayside and Wo
odland’ series of natural history. No doubt it would have pleased her, but it was, as she feared it might be, a dull book to all but the experts.

  Beatrix was not completely absorbed by mycology between 1892 and 1896, for in these same years she energetically produced a wide variety of fantasy illustrations of favorite stories and rhymes. She illustrated Cinderella, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Joel Chandler Harris’s Nights with Uncle Remus and a variety of rhymes like Edward Lear’s ‘The Owl and the Pussy-Cat’. She produced drawings for Charles Perrault’s ‘Sleeping Beauty’ and for the tale of ‘Puss in Boots’. And there were illustrations for other stories from The Arabian Nights and Aesop’s Fables, experimenting with different media and techniques. She made countless drawings of her rabbit Peter and when she became tired of rabbits, she drew mice — voles, dormice, wood mice and little white mice — and caricatured guinea pigs. On holiday travels she sent picture letters to the Moore children, including drawings of the story of ‘The Owl and the Pussy-Cat’, and from Lingholm in Keswick in 1897, a letter about squirrels that go down the river on little rafts.

  She had not given up the idea of publishing booklets or greetings cards. ‘The Squirrel’s Gift’, probably painted in 1895, for example, cleverly shows two red squirrels on a log with the front view and the back view exactly matching so that it could be opened up. Other card possibilities, like guinea pigs in a basket, had moveable parts, and she experimented with toy pictures like one called ‘Benjamin Bunny & Son, Greengrocers’ that featured bin lids that open to reveal animals hiding underneath.64