The Miss Mosleys make an appearance in my Wakefield Women in History Month series of sketches, as representatives of the women naturalists, often on the botanical side, who have made such a contribution to our local natural history records. In the days before local and national government departments were set up to monitor the environment we relied – and still do rely to a large extent – on the observations made by amateur naturalists, the original citizen’s science.
As I understand it, the Mosley sisters were natural history royalty, the daughters (correct me if I’m wrong) of an outstanding naturalist of his day, Seth Lister Mosley (1847-1929), curator of the Tolson Memorial Museum in Huddersfield. He pioneered an ecological approach to understanding the natural environment. In October 1923 he was invited to the opening of Wakefield’s museum in Holmfield House, in the city’s park.
For many years, the Wakefield Naturalists Society held an unpublished manuscript of British butterflies and moths illustrated and written by Mosley, which has now been added to the archives at the Tolson Museum.
In 1999, Miss A Allen, former leader of Wakefield Naturalists’ Plant Section, recalled the Society’s meetings of half a century earlier:
After the opening formalities at each of our monthly winter meetings, and before we settled down to enjoy the illustrated talk, individual members would tell us of any interesting observations – one of my friends likened this to a Prayer Meeting! We took ourselves seriously, guided by the 60 and 70 year olds in charge.
The summer outings were less formal. The leader for the occasion would have walked the route a few days earlier to ensure that we missed nothing of interest on the Saturday afternoon. Apart from that we just among ourselves and made our own observations.
I was 40 when the 1951 survey was made the Naturalists’ was only one of many leisure pursuits. Looking back, I marvel that I was able to do so much.”
Miss A Allen
So Nats meetings were pretty much the same then as they are now! Sadly because of restrictions, we managed just two indoor and two outdoor meetings last year.
In recent years a Wakefield Flower Group was started by the late Pauline Brook. Pauline really would deserve a post of her own. What particularly fascinated me was that, in her younger, hippy years, she had for a while lived in a cave below The Acropolis, Athens. A fascinating and funny lady.
Interesting to learn about the Miss Mosleys and the old Nat’s meetings – and to see Pauline mentioned, she was a wonderful leader of our flower group, and really encouraged novices like me.
Thanks for mentioning Seth Mosley. However, he only had one daughter, Florence. BUT, he did have two female ‘disciples’ the Thomas sisters, Floretta Edith and Constance Mary who epitomise female naturalists in the period 1890s to 1920s. All will be revealed in my forthcoming biography of Seth, due out next year to mark the centenary of Huddewrsfield’s Ravensknowle Museum. Towards the end of his life he spent a lot of time at Holmfield in Wakefield and was a good friend of the curator Harold Parkin.
Meanwhile, this may interest you.
https://undergroundhistories.wordpress.com/birds-of-the-huddersfield-area-a-historical-survey/