Article

Three men and a bird – Motley, Dillwyn, Strickland, and Copsychus stricklandii – and an introduction to Bornean nature for Alfred Russel Wallace

From Munshipedia, the MBRAS digital historical encyclopedia

Three men and a bird – Motley, Dillwyn, Strickland, and Copsychus stricklandii – and an introduction to Bornean nature for Alfred Russel Wallace

Martin Laverty’s 2013 article in the Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society traces the origins of the specific name Copsychus stricklandii—a White-crowned Shama endemic to Sabah and NE Kalimantan—revealing how the bird came to be named after a geologist killed by a train, and how its 1855 description links the two most prolific natural history collectors in 1850s Borneo, James Motley and Alfred Russel Wallace.

Summary

The article addresses persistent errors in the biographical record of James Motley, the English geologist and naturalist who collected extensively in Labuan and Borneo between 1849 and 1859. Laverty draws on newly accessible digitized archives—particularly the Strickland Correspondence at Cambridge, the Dillwyn Diaries at Swansea, and the Wallace Correspondence Project—to reconstruct the chain of events behind the 1855 publication of Contributions to the Natural History of Labuan, and the Adjacent Coasts of Borneo. The central puzzle is why the bird was named after Strickland rather than Motley, the actual collector. The answer emerges from a January 1853 letter in which Dillwyn informed Strickland of his intention to honour him, a decision made well before Strickland’s death that same year (pp. 115–117).

A secondary thread concerns the relationship between Motley and Wallace. Laverty identifies a meeting in Swansea on 15 August 1853 where Wallace, Dillwyn, and Strickland all examined Motley’s Labuan specimens, and notes a British Library letter from Motley to Wallace dated 1858 proving they corresponded but never met in person—despite both being in Singapore in 1854 (pp. 115–116, 117). The article also corrects errors in at least five prior biographical notices regarding Motley’s identity, birthplace, and dates, showing how confusion with the American historian John Lothrop Motley has compounded the problem (p. 114).

Key Findings

  • Copsychus stricklandii was described in Motley & Dillwyn’s 1855 Contributions to the Natural History of Labuan, published by Van Voorst, London; it was intended as the first of a series but remained a one-off (p. 113).
  • Dillwyn wrote to Strickland in January 1853 announcing he had named a new bird in his honour (Strickland Correspondence, Letter 472, Cambridge) (p. 117).
  • Strickland was killed in August 1853 when he sidestepped a slowly approaching train on a railway cutting and was struck by a faster one he did not see (p. 116).
  • Motley died in the Banjermassin War massacre of 1859 along with his wife and three children; his last specimen consignment, described as “from poor Mottley,” arrived in December 1859 (p. 115).
  • A British Library letter (Add. 46435 ff. 2–3) from Motley to Wallace, dated 1858, proves they corresponded but never met, despite both being in Singapore in April, May, and September 1854 (p. 117, n. 17).
  • The 1853 Swansea meeting (15 August) where Wallace, Dillwyn, and Strickland examined Motley’s Labuan collection had been overlooked by previous scholars, including R. Elwyn Hughes (p. 117, n. 17).

Conclusion

Laverty’s definitive historical takeaway is that the interplay of collector (Motley), sponsor (Dillwyn), and authority (Strickland) in the naming of C. stricklandii stands in instructive contrast to Wallace, who combined all three roles himself. The article demonstrates how digitized archives can correct long-standing biographical errors and reveal previously overlooked connections between key figures in Bornean natural history, while leaving open the question of why Wallace did not meet Motley in Singapore in 1854—possibly for political reasons (p. 117).

Context

  • Primary archival collections: Strickland Correspondence (Cambridge University Museum of Zoology), Dillwyn Diaries (Swansea University), Wallace Correspondence Project (Natural History Museum, London), British Library (Add. 46435), Kew Gardens Director’s Correspondence, and the De la Beche Correspondence (National Museum of Wales, Cardiff) (p. 118).
  • Historiographical contribution: Corrects errors in at least five prior biographical notices of Motley and identifies a previously overlooked 1853 meeting linking Wallace to the Labuan specimen network, filling a gap noted by earlier scholars such as Bastin (1987) and Hughes (1989).

References