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Charles Ashford
CHARLES ASHFORD ( 1829-1894)
Charles was born in Baldock, Hertfordshire on 7th January 1829. He was the son of Samuel and Rachel Ashford and had three brothers, John, George and William and a sister Mary. The family were devout Bedford Quakers. From an early age Charles showed an interest in natural history and when he was nine was sent to attend the Quaker Friends School in Ackworth, Yorkshire where he discovered a love for science and a talent for drawing. Here he stayed for thirteen years, first as a pupil and later as a teacher and it was while he was a teacher here that he developed an interest in Ornithology. It was through a colleague, Henry Thompson that he became interested in birds and their eggs which was a passion that stayed with him throughout his lifetime.
His love of science encouraged him to further his teaching skills and from 1851 to 1854 he studied to be a mathematics teacher at the Flounders Institute in Ackworth. Here his interest in Conchology grew and he began to make a detailed study of the molluscs in the area. In 1854, as a result of this work, he completed a ‘List of the Mollusca of Ackworth’ which was published later that year, first in ‘The Zoologist’ and then in ‘The Naturalist’. Whilst at the Flounders Institute he also became interested in astronomy and used the college telescope to study the night skies taking particular interest in the transits of planets and stars. He made a detailed study of Orion as well as lengthy observations of double stars, nebulae and clusters. While using the telescope however, he injured his right eye, which impaired his sight and affected him for the rest of his life.
Towards the end of 1854 Charles left Ackworth and went to teach mathematics in Hitchin and Tottenham. He continued collecting eggs from these areas adding to his growing collection. In 1875 he went to live on the Isle of Wight where he studied and built up a large collection of Eocene fossils from the freshwater deposits at Hempstead, Sconce, Totland Bay, Colwell Bay and Headon Hill.
In 1879 he returned to the North of England where he lived in Redcar for a short time. Here he made a study of the shells of the area and produced the work ‘Land and Freshwater Shells Observed in the Neighbourhood of Redcar’. The following year Charles retired and went to live with his brother John in Christchurch where he continued to study conchology using his artistic skills to produce finely detailed anatomical drawings of the structure of molluscs. He also continued to collect eggs, passing many onto his brother for his own collection.
During the 1880’s he worked closely with the naturalist, William Denison Roebuck, studying and drawing British slugs and snails, taking particular interest in the darts of snails. This resulted in a paper for the Journal of Conchology, ‘The Darts of the British Helicidae’. During this time he also collected mollusc specimens from the Isle of Wight, Dorset and Christchurch. Some of these specimens are now held in the Potteries Museum in Stoke.
Charles died suddenly of a stroke in January 1894 leaving behind a wealth of information on the mollusc species of the British Isles and of British birds and their eggs. His work was thorough and comprehensive and greatly respected and acknowledged by other natural historians of the time. His death was a sad loss to the world of conchology. Warm and heart felt obituaries to Charles were written in ‘The Journal of Conchology’ by J.W. Taylor and in ‘The Naturalist’ by C. Irwin Evans. After his death his collection of British land and freshwater shells were placed in Leeds Museum, which still holds a large part of his mollusc collection. The egg collection of Charles and John is now housed in Ludlow Museum Resource Centre, Shropshire.
In 1917 the genus Ashfordia was appointed to Ashford and the species Ashfordia granulata, the Silky Snail named after him, which subsequently came to be known as Ashford’s Hairy Snail.
PUBLISHED WORK
Published work
Paper on ‘On The Habits of Helix fusca.’
Paper on ‘Note on The Limnaea glutinosa Muller’
Paper on ‘Land and Freshwater Snails observed in the neighbourhood of Redcar’
Paper on ‘Destruction of Shell-life by Floods’
Paper on ‘Note on the Anatomy of Helix hispida and Helix cantiana’
Paper on ‘Bulimus acutus var. bizona in the Isle of Wight’.
Paper on ‘Note on Bilimus heterostomus of the Eocene, Isle of Wight’.
Paper on ‘list of Shells of the Lower Tees District, Yorkshire’.
1854, ‘Mollusca of Ackworth’ was published in ‘The Zoologist’, ‘The Naturalist’ and in ‘The Quarterly Journal of Conchology’.
1881, ‘The Giant African Snail – A Problem in Economic Malcology’:- ref. to ‘Notes from the Isle of Wight Journal’ by Ashford in the Journal of Conchology., 3:132-35.
1883-1885, ‘The Darts of the British Helicidae’ printed in the ‘Journal of Conchology’.
1887, ‘Land and Freshwater Mollusca around Christchurch, South Hants’.
1895, His work on snails and slugs is mentioned in the book ‘Molluscs and Brachiopods’ by the Cambridge Natural History Society..
Charles Ashford is also mentioned in ‘Monograph of the Land and Freshwater Mollusca of the British Isles’ by John W. Taylor, Feb 1912.