Historical records matching Thomas Ayres, b1
view all
Immediate Family
-
wife -
-
mother
-
father
-
sister -
brother
-
sister
-
brother -
sister
About Thomas Ayres, b1
Thomas H. Ayres (1827/28–1913) was a British born South African ornithologist.
He arrived with his parents and other family members at Port Natal, South Africa in 1850. They and some other settlers left two years later for Australia. Later they returned to farm in what is now the Pinetown district, just inland of Durban.
Ayres became one of the colonists who augmented their incomes by collecting and preparing items of natural history, which were sold to naturalists in western Europe. Most new bird species shot by Ayres were named by Dr. K. J. G. Hartlaub of Bremen in Germany.
Some of the species named by Hartlaub on Ayres's specimens were from the Port Natal area or just inland; these include the Ashy flycather, Muscicapa (Alseonax) caerulescens, and the Green twinspot. Ayres shot the type of the elusive forest-dwelling Orange thrush, Turdus (Zoothera) gurneyi, in Town Bush, Pietermaritzburg, and was instrumental in obtaining the type of Gurney's Sugarbird, Promerops gurneyi, somewhere in Natal, which was described by Jules Verreaux in 1871.
Ayres's main patron was John Henry Gurney sr., of Norwich, England, who consulted Hartlaub on taxonomy. Gurney disposed some of his material to R. Bowdler Sharpe of the British Museum (Nat. Hist.), in South Kensington, London, and others.
In 1865 Thomas and his brother Jack moved to the Transvaal. There he farmed, panned for gold, brewed, and collected birds for sale. He and his brother also hunted and traded with the Boer settlers. He settled down at Potchefstroom, where he died in 1913. Here he did much to encourage the young Austin Roberts, who was to become a well-known zoologist. The Slaty egret and White-winged Crake, S. ayresi, were new species that he obtained in this region.
Ayres is commemorated in the names of the Ayres' Hawk-Eagle (Hieraaetus ayresii), Ayres’ Cisticola (Cisticola ayresii), and the White-winged Flufftail (Sarothura ayresi).
Sources and References
- Page “Genealogical Institute of SA, Stellenbosch, 2011 SAF CD v 1”
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Ayres
- Marriage Declaration 1855
view all
Thomas Ayres, b1's Timeline
| 1828 |
1828
|
Hertfordshire, England (United Kingdom)
|
|
| 1856 |
1856
|
Pinetown, Durban, Natal, South Africa
|
|
| 1913 |
July 31, 1913
Age 85
|
Potchefstroom, South Africa
|