Edward Frederick Kelaart
Lieutenant Colonel Edward Frederick Kelaart (21 November 1819 – 31 August 1860) was a Ceylonese-born medical doctor and naturalist. He made some of the first systematic studies from the region and described many plants and animals from Sri Lanka.
Also recorded as Kelaart
Edward Frederick Kelaart
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- Born
- 1819 · Sri Lanka.
- Died
- 1860
- Nationality
- United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
- Occupation
- zoologist · naturalist · botanist · writer
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Biography
Biography
Edward Frederick (sometimes spelt Fredric) Kelaart was born on 21 November 1819 in Colombo, Sri Lanka. The family was of Dutch and German heritage. He was the oldest son of William Henry Kelaart and Anna Frederika. William worked as an assistant apothecary to the forces. The family had settled in Sri Lanka around 1726. At the age of sixteen, Edward joined the Ceylon government as a medical assistant. In 1838 he went to study at the University of Edinburgh, receiving an MD from the Royal College of Surgeons in 1841. He returned to Ceylon to become a Staff Assistant Surgeon in the Army in 1841 and was posted in 1843 to Gibraltar as an Army Surgeon. He published Flora Calpensis, the flora of Gibraltar, in 1845. He was elected Fellow of the Linnean Society on 17 February 1846, seconded by J. D. Hooker and Ray Lankester. In 1848, he returned to Ceylon and began making systematic studies. He was also a member of the Geological Society of London, although he did not publish on the topic. Promoted Staff Surgeon in 1852, he travelled around Sri Lanka and especially studied the highland regions of Nuwara Eliya. He made large collections of reptiles at Nuwara Eliya and sent them to the museum curator-zoologist Edward Blyth. In 1856 he was made Naturalist to the Government of Ceylon. His first work was to study the pearl fisheries. His taxonomic contributions included the description of 16 species of Turbellaria, 22 species of Actiniaria and 63 species of Nudibranchia. In 1852 he published Prodromus faunae Zeylanicae, on the Ceylonese vertebrate fauna. Kelaart died aboard the S.S. Ripon on the way to England on 31 August 1860 and was buried at Southampton. A bust of Kelaart was made by sculptor Henry Weigall. Two species of birds found in Sri Lanka are named after him: the black-throated munia (Lonchura kelaarti) and the hawk-eagle Nisaetus kelaarti. The Sri Lankan subspecies of jungle nightjar, Caprimulgus indicus kelaarti, also refers to Kelaart. The disused monotypic genus Kelaartia (yellow-eared bulbul) likewise commemorated him. Toad Adenomus kelaartii is also named after him.
Identity
Identity
Edward Frederick Kelaart is recorded as a citizen of United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Recorded with the occupation naturalist.
Adenomus kelaartii, a frog endemic to Lanka
Buddhika Mawella (Buddhika.jm at English Wikipedia) · Buddhika Mawella · Own work by the original uploader
Actinia tranchellana, gezeichnet von E. F. Kelaart (1818-1860), in der Sammlung des Hancock Museum, Newcastle upon Tyne.
Zeichnung von E. F. Kelaart (1818-1860) · Buch: Rohan Pethiyagoda, Kelum Manamendra-Arachni: "The Life and Work of Edward Fredric Kelaart." In: J. South Asian nat. History, 1997, Bd. 2, Nr. 2, S. 239.
Life and career
Dated record
Life and career
The full dated record · 2 entries
1819
Edward Frederick Kelaart was born on 21 November 1819.
1860
Edward Frederick Kelaart died on 31 August 1860.
Text attribution
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Part of the biographical narrative on this page reuses licensed material. Its origin, revision and licence are recorded here.
The biographical narrative on this page is based on the Wikipedia article Edward Frederick Kelaart, revision 1363210005 (EN edition), by its contributors. VALÉORINE has edited that text and built its own documentary record around it. The reused material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0, and this page's reuse of it is offered under the same licence. Everything else on this page — the chronology, the holdings, the evidence, the plates and the connections — is VALÉORINE's own record. Sources and licences.
Notes from the source article
Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1.Lewis, J. Penry. List of inscriptions on Tombstones and Monumants in Ceylon. Government Press. 95. 1913.
- 2.Duke of Argyll. Address delivered at the Anniversary meeting of the Geological Society of London on the 21st of February 1873. 18. 1873.
- 3.Smith, M. A. 1941. Fauna of British India. Reptilia and Amphibia.
- 4.Kelaart, E.F. Introductory Report on the Natural History of the Pearl Oyster of Ceylon. Madras Journal of Literature and Science. 3. 5. 89–105. 1857.
- 5.Eliot, Charles. On the nudibranchs of southern India and Ceylon, with special reference to the drawings by Kelaart and the collections belonging to Alder & Hancock preserved in the Hancock Museum at Newcastle-on-Tyne. Proc. Zool. Soc. London. 636–691. 1906.
- 6.Pethiyagoda, Rohan & K. Manamendra-Arachchi. The life and work of Edward Fredric Kelaart. J. South Asian Nat. Hist. 2. 217–246. 1997.
- 7.Graves, Algernon. The Royal Academy of Arts. A complete dictionary of contributors and their works from its foundation in 1769 to 1904. Volume 8. Toft to Zwecker. Henry Graves and Co. 199. 1906.
- 8.Beolens, Bo. The Eponym Dictionary of Birds. Bloomsbury. 669. 2014. 978-1-4729-0574-1.
- 9.Beolens, Bo. The Eponym Dictionary of Amphibians. Pelagic Publishing. 111. 2013. 978-1-907807-42-8.
Bibliography printed in the source article · 6
- (1846) Flora calpensis; contributions to the botany and topography of Gibraltar, and its neighbourhood.
- (1853) Prodromus Faunæ Zeylanicæ; being Contributions to the Zoology of Ceylon
- (1854) Descriptions of new or little-known species of Reptiles collected in Ceylon. Annals and Magazine of Natural History (2) 13: 25-30.
- (1854) Catalogue of the Reptiles collected in Ceylon. Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist. 13:137-140.
- (1857) Introductory Report on the natural history of the Pearl Oyster of Ceylon
- (1859) Contributions to Marine Zoology; being descriptions of Ceylon Nudibranchiate Molluscs, Sea Anemones and Entozoa, Colombo.
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