Credit: © The Royal Society
Image number: RS.8500
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Turret nests of termites
Date
ca. 1781
Creator
Henry Smeathman (1742 - 1786, British) , Naturalist
Object type
Archive reference number
Material
Dimensions
height (painting): 232mm
width (painting): 292mm
width (painting): 292mm
Subject
Biology
> Entomology
Biology
> Natural history
Politics & Government
> Political doctrines
> Colonialism
> Entomology
Biology
> Natural history
Politics & Government
> Political doctrines
> Colonialism
Content object
Description
View of “turret nests” of termites (identified by Smeathman as Termes mordax and Termes atrox) in grassland, with a key to the figures below.
An inset figure, showing a European stooping over a smaller scale version of the same scene with a measuring rod, was not used in the printed plate. This figure tentatively identified as a portrait of Henry Smeathman in the essay “Imagining the tropical colony: Henry Smeathman and the termites of Sierra Leone” by Starr Douglas and Felix Driver (2005). A faint pencil inscription above this reads: “This group and figure not to be engraved”. Headed “Drawing 6”. Signed upper left “Hen: Smeathman, del”.
Plate 9 figures 1-6 and one unused figure from the paper “Some account of the termites, which are found in Africa and other hot climates”, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society vol.71 part 1 1781 pp.139-192.
Henry Smeathman (1742–1786) English naturalist, known for his work in entomology and colonial settlement in Sierra Leone.
In 1771 Quaker Physician John Fothergill, along with two other members of the Royal Society, Sir Joseph Banks and Marmaduke Tunstall, sponsored Smeathman to spend four years in and around the Sierra Leone peninsula studying its natural history, specifically its insects. His research relied heavily on individuals involved in slave-trading networks for support and assistance.
An inset figure, showing a European stooping over a smaller scale version of the same scene with a measuring rod, was not used in the printed plate. This figure tentatively identified as a portrait of Henry Smeathman in the essay “Imagining the tropical colony: Henry Smeathman and the termites of Sierra Leone” by Starr Douglas and Felix Driver (2005). A faint pencil inscription above this reads: “This group and figure not to be engraved”. Headed “Drawing 6”. Signed upper left “Hen: Smeathman, del”.
Plate 9 figures 1-6 and one unused figure from the paper “Some account of the termites, which are found in Africa and other hot climates”, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society vol.71 part 1 1781 pp.139-192.
Henry Smeathman (1742–1786) English naturalist, known for his work in entomology and colonial settlement in Sierra Leone.
In 1771 Quaker Physician John Fothergill, along with two other members of the Royal Society, Sir Joseph Banks and Marmaduke Tunstall, sponsored Smeathman to spend four years in and around the Sierra Leone peninsula studying its natural history, specifically its insects. His research relied heavily on individuals involved in slave-trading networks for support and assistance.
Associated place