1. Margaret Fountaine raised many of the butterflies from eggs or caterpillars, producing specimens of great quality, 22,000 of which are housed at the Norwich Castle Museum and known as the Fountaine-Neimy Collection.
19 Facts About Margaret Fountaine
1. 2.
Margaret Fountaine was born in Norwich, the eldest of seven children of an English country clergyman, Reverend John Margaret Fountaine of South Acre parish in Norfolk.
3.
On 15 April 1878, Margaret Fountaine, who was educated at home, began keeping a diary and she did this until her death in 1940.
4.
Margaret Fountaine travelled the world, collecting butterflies in sixty countries on six continents over fifty years, and became an expert in tropical butterfly life-cycles.
5.
Margaret Fountaine compiled reports and drawings of the butterflies she found and sent them to entomological journals.
6.
In Switzerland Margaret Fountaine felt the desire to acquire specimens of the Scarce Swallowtail and Camberwell Beauty butterflies, when discovering them in the valleys.
7.
Margaret Fountaine was the first British butterfly collector to brave the south Italian Brigande.
8.
Margaret Fountaine's article was discussed in subsequent issues of The Entomologist.
9.
Margaret Fountaine started to collect caterpillars in the French Alps, which she breed to produce adult butterfly specimens.
10.
Margaret Fountaine cooperated with Elwes on his Grecian Lepidoptera exhibition.
11.
When she was back in London Margaret Fountaine set her African specimens.
12.
Margaret Fountaine was in her mid-sixties, and while she continued to travel for expeditions, she focused her efforts on watercolours and collecting.
13.
Margaret Fountaine only published the occasional note on the expeditions in The Entomologist.
14.
Margaret Fountaine travelled to various places in West and East Africa, Indo-China, Hong Kong, the Malay States, Brazil, the West Indies and Trinidad.
15.
Margaret Fountaine was buried in an unmarked grave at Woodbrook Cemetery, Port of Spain, Trinidad.
16.
Margaret Fountaine left a large collection of scientifically accurate watercolours to the British Museum of Natural History.
17.
Margaret Fountaine had provided that the collection was only to be opened in 1978.
18.
Margaret Fountaine had filled twelve large volumes of cloth-bound books with some 3,203 pages and more than a million words, displaying a blend of Victorian reserve and startling candour.
19.
Margaret Fountaine's illustrations have been featured in the Natural History Museum 2014 publication, Women Artists: Images of Nature by Andrea Hart.