Report of David Rudge's July 1997 visit to

London and Oxford, England

The following is a brief report of my visit to England this past July. It begins with a chronologically-ordered list of my activities while in England. It concludes with a preliminary evaluation of what I learned as a result of taking the trip.

Chronological summary of activities

Date	Activity

July 2	I arrived at Heathrow airport in London and traveled by the underground to 
	Professor Joseph Cain's apartment, a friend who agreed to put me up during my 
	brief stay in London.


3	Reported in at the Centre for the Philosophy of the Natural and Social Sciences, 
	London School of Economics and Political Science. Sat in on one of the Darwin 
	Seminars being held that day entitled "The Maladapted Mind", consisting of three 
	talks by biologists and psychologists on the possibility that what are generally 
	considered to be aberrant social behaviors might have (had) a selective value in 
	nature at low frequencies. Met briefly with several people associated with the 
	Centre.


4-5	Spent some time in London sightseeing


6	Traveled to Manchester to interview Professor Lawrence Cook, a former colleague 
	of Kettlewell and a very helpful corespondent during my initial work on Kettlewell. 
	Taped almost six hours, before leaving by train to Oxford.


7	Checked in with the archivists at both Wolfson College and the Bodeleian, took 
	care of last bit of paperwork to be formally permitted to work in the two archives 
	and did some research among Ford's archived papers at the Bodeleian.


8	Spent day working at Wolfson College among Kettlewell's papers; met with 
	Professor Colin Allen, a philosopher and colleague from Texas A&M University 
	who was visiting his parents on part of his own European business trip.


9-10 	Worked at Wolfson College.


11	Spent day working at the Bodleian looking through Ford's papers, also visited the 
	Ratcliffe Science library and examined James Cadbury's (a student of Kettlewell's) 
	dissertation.


12-14	Worked at Wolfson College.


15	Spent day at Bodleian, evening at Wolfson College.


16	Worked at Wolfson College


17	Spent a day in London doing some family history research.


18	Traveled to Liverpool to meet with Sir Cyril Clarke, a former colleague of 
	Kettlewell, and his wife Lady Feo. Spent the afternoon taping an interview with 
	them.


19-20	Worked at Wolfson College.


21	Spent morning with Allison Gill, who worked with Phillip Sheppard and knew 
	Kettlewell. She gave me a tour of the National Museum, and also access to 
	Kettlewell's moth collections. She also introduced me to David Carter, who had 
	repeated dealings with Kettlewell regarding the disposition of the Rothschild-
	Cockayne-Kettlewell moth collection. Taped my interviews with each. Spent 
	afternoon in London doing some family history research.


22-23	Worked at Wolfson College.


24	Spent a day in London doing some family history research.


25	Spent day working at the Bodeleian, night at Wolfson College.


26	Met with R. J. Berry (one of Kettlewell's former colleagues) and taped a two hour 
	interview with him. Spent rest of day at Wolfson College.


27-28	Finished up at Wolfson College and the Bodleian


29	Traveled to London and spent balance of time at Public Records Office.


30	Traveled with Joe Cain to Miriam Rothschild's home at Ashton Wold near 
	Peterborough. She introduced us to the members of the Entomologist's Club, the 
	oldest entomological society in the world. It has exactly eight members, seven of 
	whom were in attendance and all of whom had met or worked with Kettlewell. 
	Taped my individual interviews with each.


31	Traveled back to the United States.

Preliminary evaluation

The trip was very productive in providing me with both opportunities to meet with Kettlewell's former associates, and access to archival materials that could not be obtained by any other means.

The interviews were particularly helpful, as they provided me with a chance to tape very candid assessments of Kettlewell's work by his peers and also a number of amusing anecdotes relating to his professional and social life. They also proved invaluable in helping me to check my preliminary interpretations of some of the archival materials I was examining. For instance, the archives contained little or no information on Kettlewell as a teacher. At first I thought this reflected an archivist's (or Kettlewell's) own decision not to preserve such materials, but on questioning his former colleagues I learned that Kettlewell's appointment in Oxford involved very little teaching. They also gave me addresses of several additional colleagues and friends of Kettlewell to contact by mail. Each of the people I taped indicated he or she would be willing to read over parts of a book manuscript. I have signed permission forms from each of the individuals mentioned above as being taped.

My work at the archives was also productive. With regard to the Bodeleian, by the end of my visit I had completely gone through archival materials at the Bodeleian that might be germane to my proposal, including most of the Ford archive, and parts of the Tinbergen, Darlington, and Hardy archives. With regard to the Kettlewell archive at Wolfson, I had the good fortune of being given permission by the librarian to work with Kettlewell's papers during the evenings and on weekends, when the library is ordinarily closed. This allowed me to schedule interviews on weekdays, making my schedule much more flexible for others. It also extended the total amount of time I was able to spend researching at Wolfson College. By the end of my visit, I finished searching through all of Kettlewell's non-correspondence files (Boxes 1-7) and also all of his correspondence with the following scientific colleagues: P. B. M. Allen, G. Arnold, N.T. J. Bailey, J. R. Baker, S.S. Bamforth, M. Barling, R. Barling, Sally Balring, Seymour Barling, G. de Beer, R. J. and C. Berry, W. Bowater, S. R. Bowden, Sir W. L. Bragg, L & J. Brower, C. J. Cadbury, J. C. Cadbury, E.A. Cockayne, E. R. Creed, C. D. Darlington, W. F. Davidson, R. P. Demuth, W. H. Dowdeswell, R. A. Fisher, E. B. Ford, J.B.S. Haldane, A. C. and S. Hardy, J. W. Heslop Harrison, J. D. Hillaby, R. A. Hinde, F. H. Lees, K. G. McWhirter, P. Makings, K. Mather, L.H. Matthews, R.H.T. Mattoni, E. Mayr, B.S. Meeuse, Pringle, N. D. Riley, P. M. Sheppard, N. Tinbergen, R.W. J. Uffen, M.B. Usher, and B.P. Uvarov. There were a number of additional files of Kettlewell's correspondence with other individuals that I did not have time to examine. I am, however, fairly certain that I examined all his scientific correspondence germane to the questions of my study. By the end of my visit I had reached a point of diminishing returns - examining files of correspondence with individuals whose names I did not recognize despite all my previous research on Kettlewell's scientific work. I am certain that my search of the correspondence is complete with regard to his scientific colleagues. The files that remain are primarily his correspondence with naturalists, requests and replies for local betularia frequencies, etc.

It is difficult at this point to state precisely how much I learned from the archives. Part of this reflects the nature of archival work. To make the most of my visit, I spent the bulk of my time scanning as many items as possible. I requested photocopies of those items that were clearly germane to my research without taking time to read them, and set aside those items that were obviously not germane to my proposal. The items I spent the most time on were the many items that could not be so easily categorized, many of which I ultimately ended up either photocopying or taking notes on. It will take some time to review the numerous (1, 500+ pages) photocopies I made and the extensive notes I took of materials I ultimately decided not to photocopy.

The above caveat notwithstanding, some general remarks about the contents of the archives and what I found with regard to my specific project can be made. The Kettlewell archive contains an extensive amount of biographical information about him, but unfortunately most of this has been placed in restricted boxes. Of the boxes I was able to examine, there was very little material relating to his early schooling, his medical training, his wife and her role in the experiments, or his parents. I visited a local history library in Oxford in the hope of finding his obituary and also that of his wife, but neither one was available at this library. (I did, however, later obtain a copy of both his obituary and a copy of a letter E.B. Ford sent to the editor of the paper correcting a mistake in it from David Carter during my visit to the National Museum.) I have obtained an address for his son, David Kettlewell, who lives in this country (CT). I also found several letters written during his time in South Africa that provide glimpses of his life there. I will, of course, need to examine the materials I found in greater detail, but my impression of what I have found to date suggests that the book will have to be less biographical in character than stated in the original proposal.

The catalog for the Kettlewell archive indicates that Kettlewell's research notes and scientific logs are at present not accounted for. I had hoped to find copies of manuscripts of papers he submitted as well as correspondence between him and his editors regarding his submissions, particularly his first three papers on industrial melanism. For the most part, these materials have also been lost, although I did find correspondence between him and Ken Mather (then an editor of Heredity) regarding his 1958 paper (which summarizes his investigations and reports the results of his survey of betularia frequencies in Great Britain). I also found editorial correspondence regarding talks he gave at professional organizations (e.g. the Royal Society) that were later published. Among the most significant things I found relating to his early publications was some correspondence between Kettlewell and R.A. Fisher regarding his first (1955) paper on industrial melanism, and an extensive correspondence between Kettlewell and Phillip Sheppard during the time Kettlewell was writing his first papers that describe Ford's involvement and indicate a closer relationship between Kettlewell and Sheppard than I previously suspected. I also found some letters Kettlewell wrote to colleagues during both his Birmingham and Dorset experiments that describe his day to day activities, how he was conducting the experiments, etc. I was also delighted to find a very extensive set of correspondence between Kettlewell and Sheppard and Kettlewell and Ford. Although the latter were both working in Oxford, they apparently were out in the field and on trips so often that they corresponded to one another by mail quite frequently.

Perhaps the most striking find is a letter Kettlewell wrote to E.A. Cockayne shortly after his radioactive locust paper was published. He apparently sent Cockayne a copy of the reprint along with a letter describing his proposed betularia study. Cockayne replied, apparently misinterpreting Kettlewell, that he didn't see how a radioactive tracer could be used to study betularia. Kettlewell's 2 page reply provides an explicit statement of the differences between the two studies, and why the method he used with locusts would not be feasible with regard to his betularia work. I've suspected all along that there might be a connection between his work on betularia and the earlier locust work--I'm very excited about finding a letter that explicitly discusses what Kettlewell thought the connection, if any, was at the time of his studies.

The Kettlewell archive also contains an enormous amount of material documenting precisely what Kettlewell did to advertise his work - correspondence relating to: (1) newspaper and popular magazine articles Kettlewell wrote, (2) numerous lectures Kettlewell gave to natural history societies throughout Britain, the U.S. and other countries as well, (3) his two major films "Evolution in Action" and "Brazilian Insect Adaptations", (4) several radio talks he gave (including copies of his scripts), (5) his occasional television appearances and requests for permission to use his films on television, and (6) exhibits he made illustrating industrial melanism. I made photocopies of most of these documents, to provide both a quantitative and qualitative assessment of precisely what Kettlewell was doing to promote his work, one of the major questions of my proposal.

The Kettlewell archive, the interviews I took, and also materials found during my search of records at the Bodeleian, provide a fair amount of documentation on how Kettlewell's work on industrial melanism was perceived by his colleagues. There is ample evidence that his fellow scientists were initially quite enamored with Kettlewell's study, but that they became disenchanted with his studies over time. For instance, Phillip Sheppard, who I've discovered had an important role in helping Kettlewell with the execution and interpretation of his studies, had a number of reservations about the scientific merits of Kettlewell's study, and in particular, the densities of moths Kettlewell used. These reservations ultimately led Sheppard and Cyril Clarke to do a repeat of the experiments. Another example, which may represent a microcosm of the reception of Kettlewell's work by the scientific community as a whole, is how his early investigations were perceived by the Royal Society. There is ample documentation that the Society initially seized upon Kettlewell's work, inviting him on several occasions to lecture and show his films and also his exhibit on industrial melanism at annual meetings. They invited him in particular to be the one to create a momento (a paperweight with the typica and carbonaria forms of the moth) of their centennial celebration of the charting of the Royal Society for the Queen who was scheduled to be in attendance. (There are some amusing letters as well describing Kettlewell's attempts on behalf of the Society to gain permission to capture moths from the Royal Gardens for use in the paperweight.) Yet despite this acclaim, and repeated attempts by Ford, Kettlewell was never elected a fellow in the Royal Society. I found several letters among Ford's correspondence that indicate Kettlewell was proposed as a candidate as early as 1964, and that Ford updated a file for use by the Royal Society's membership committee on a yearly basis. These attempts reach their climax in 1974 after Kettlewell published his definitive book on melanism and was presumably best positioned for the honor. I found a very striking personal letter from Ford to Kettlewell both indicating Ford had received word that Kettlewell was on the short list of candidates, but that he (Ford) personally thought Kettlewell's chances were slim to none and his own speculation about why this would be the case. I hope to visit the Cain and Sheppard archive in Philadelphia in the coming year, as I feel certain Ford discussed this matter further in confidence with Sheppard, one of Kettlewell's sponsors for membership.

In summary, the trip was very successful. I found a great deal of material that bears directly on the questions of my proposed study and also made a number of invaluable contacts with people who are well acquainted with Kettlewell and his work.

You may contact Dave Rudge either by email, by phone (269)-387-2779 or by fax (269)-387-5609.

Dave Rudge's Home Page.

The Department of Biological Sciences's Home Page.

The Mallinson Institute for Science Education's Home Page.

Western Michigan University's Home Page.

Last updated on 14 Nov 2005.