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- She opened a school for girls in Grahamstown in 1844. Published a volume of fifty poems of varying merit, under the title 'The Erythrina Tree and Other Verses'. Became a noted botanist and authority on South African flora and achieved an international reputation. No less that eight of her numerous monographs on botanical, entomological and zoological subjects were published by Linnean and other learned societies in Europe, some of them being translated into foreign languages. Over a number of years she regularly corresponded with famous botanists, like Sir Joseph and Sir William Hooker; she supplied Charles Darwin with much valuable information for the epock-making 'Origin of the Species', and materially aided Dr. W.H. Harvey in the compilation of his 'Thesaurus Capensis'. A collection of her drawings and paintings hang in the Albany Museum, Grahamstown.
Extract from the Grahamstown Journal, December 1842.
Married on the 19th inst. in St.George's Church, Graham's Town by the Rev.J.HEAVYSIDE, Frederic Wm.BARBER to Mary Elizabeth, eldest daughter of the late Miles BOWKER Esq. of Tharfield
From : Men of the Times - Pioneers of the Transvaal and Glimpses of South Africa - Transvaal Publishing Company - Printed by Eyre and Spottiswoode in 1905 and copied by Sylvia Gazendam on facebook:
"This lady was born in England, and came to South Africa with her parents, who were settlers of 1820, spending her childhood and youth at Tharfield, near Port Alfred. She was the constant companion of her father, himself an ardent student of nature and a good botanist; from him she learnt the principles of those sciences which gained her the friendship of the Hookers and of Doctor Harvey, whom she materially assisted in the compilation of the "Thessaurus Capensis", many of her discoveries being named after her in both her maiden and married names. From her love of natural history sprung a life-long correspondence with Charles Darwin and many other eminent men of the day. Many of her papers of observation on South African fauna and flora were read before and published by the Linnean Society. Her genius was also recognised on the Continent and she was elected a member of the Hungarian Ornithological Society. During the early troublesome times of the frontier the family were frequently shut up in laagers surrounded by hostile Kaffirs, and on several occasions had to flee for their lives. This lady was the author of a volume of fifty charming poems, all of which bear testimony to her sense of humour and love of natural history. In the year 1845 she was married to Frederick William Barber, son of Thomas Barber, the eminent artist of Nottingham, England, and had two sons and a daughter. In 1854 her husband was granted the farm Lammermoor on the Zwart Kei for service rendered in the war against the Kaffir chief Kreli, when he was driven across the great Kei. In these new fields many of her botanical discoveries were made. From here they removed to the farm Highlands, near Grahamstown, and it was there that she conducted her most important investigations in the life studies of butterflies, her valuable services being handsomely acknowledged by Mr. Rowland Triman in his work on the butterflies of South Africa. Eighteen years later the family removed to the Griqualand West diamond fields, where Mrs. Barber lived for many years, and painted a number of her pictures. Her hospitable home was the rendezvous of all the men of note who visited the country during the early days of Kimberley. On the discovery of gold in the Transvaal Mrs. Barber removed thither with her two sons, spending the cold winter with her brother, Colonel Bowker, of Malvern, Natal. Her death took place in that colony, in Pietermaritzburg, on September 4th 1899. During her lifetime Mrs. Barber gave her herbarium and collection of butterflies to the Albany Museum, and to these her son's daughter has added her many varied and beautiful paintings of birds, flowers and insects, as a memorial of her, and for the encouragement of others in their pursuit of these beautiful subjects which so filled her life with unalloyed pleasure and interest, and to whose glorious pageant year by year her name will live and be remembered.'
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McGregor Museum Kimberley
CELEBRATING WOMEN in WOMEN'S MONTH : MARY ELIZABETH BARBER (1818-1899)—noticing her feminist Darwinism and the micro-politics of her knowledge of birds…
M.E. Barber, who spent some years on the Diamond Fields in the 1870s, was an amateur scientist—“South Africa's first lady natural historian"—who, without formal education, made a name for herself in botany, ornithology and entomology.
Through her science, moreover, Barber was a FEMINIST and CAMPAIGNER for GENDER EQUALITY, as Tanja Hammel shows in an article, "Thinking with Birds: Mary Elizabeth Barber's Advocacy for Gender Equality in Ornithology".
Hammel writes that "Birds raised [Barber's] awareness of women's subordinate role in settler society and became her 'best friends' in advocating gender equality. She addressed people who believed in the human's special position in the chain of being and showed them that, since there was gender equality among birds, that should also be part of humanity if humans were superior."
We cite in full the Abstract of Tanja Hammel’s paper: "This article explores parts of the first South African woman ornithologist's life and work. It concerns itself with the micro-politics of Mary Elizabeth Barber's knowledge of birds from the 1860s to the mid-1880s. Her work provides insight into contemporary scientific practices, particularly the importance of cross-cultural collaboration. I foreground how she cultivated a feminist Darwinism in which birds served as corroborative evidence for female selection and how she negotiated gender equality in her ornithological work. She did so by constructing local birdlife as a space of gender equality. While male ornithologists naturalised and reinvigorated Victorian gender roles in their descriptions and depictions of birds, she debunked them and stressed the absence of gendered spheres in bird life. She emphasised the female and male birds' collaboration and gender equality that she missed in Victorian matrimony, an institution she harshly criticised. Reading her work against the background of her life story shows how her personal experiences as wife and mother as well as her observation of settler society informed her view on birds, and vice versa. Through birds she presented alternative relationships to matrimony. Her protection of insectivorous birds was at the same time an attempt to stress the need for a New Woman, an aspect that has hitherto been overlooked in studies of the transnational anti-plumage movement."
Mary Elizabeth Barber was an accomplished poet and painter. She herself illustrated her scientific contributions that were published by learned societies such as the Royal Entomological Society in London, the Royal Botanical Gardens in Kew, and the Linnaean Society of London.
In addition, M.E. Barber has earned special mention in connection with the early recognition of Stone Age artefacts, noticing and describing prehistoric stone tools while she was at the Diamond Fields in the early 1870s. Alan Cohen, writing in the South African Archaeological Bulletin, states: "Mary Elizabeth Barber and her brothers, Thomas Holden and James Henry Bowker, were three of the earliest South Africans to investigate and realise the significance of Stone Age tools. In this they were for a time, arguably in advance of their European counterparts, and deserve wider recognition as pioneers in the field of South African archaeology."
Photo: Mary Elizabeth Barber with (probably) her brothers Thomas Holden Bowker and James Henry Bowker, about 1880.
References:
Cohen, A. 1999. “Mary Elizabeth Barber, the Bowkers and South African Prehistory." South African Archaeological Bulletin 54: 120-127.
Hammel, T. 2015. “Thinking with Birds: Mary Elizabeth Barber's Advocacy for Gender Equality in Ornithology.” Kronos 41 (SPECIAL ISSUE: The Micro-Politics of Knowledge Production in Southern Africa): 85-111.
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