Alfred William Alcock was a British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 physician

Physician

A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...

 naturalist

Natural history

Natural history is the scientific research of plants or animals, leaning more towards observational rather than experimental methods of study, and encompasses more research published in magazines than in academic journals. Grouped among the natural sciences, natural history is the systematic study...

 and carcinologist.

Alcock was the son of a sea-captain, John Alcock in Bombay, India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

 who retired to live in Blackheath. His mother was a daughter of Christopher Puddicombe, the only son of a Devon squire.

Life and career

Alcock studied at Mill Hill School

Mill Hill School

Mill Hill School, in Mill Hill, London, is a coeducational independent school for boarding and day pupils aged 13–18. It is a member of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference, an organisation of public schools in the United Kingdom....

, at Blackheath Proprietary School

Blackheath Proprietary School

The Blackheath Proprietary School was an educational establishment founded in 1830 that was noted in the contemporary press as an extremely successful school in terms of its education but is perhaps most notable for its profound influence on the game of football, in both Association and Rugby codes...

 and at Westminster School

Westminster School

The Royal College of St. Peter in Westminster, almost always known as Westminster School, is one of Britain's leading independent schools, with the highest Oxford and Cambridge acceptance rate of any secondary school or college in Britain...

. In 1876 his father faced financial losses and he was taken out of school and sent to India in the Wynaad district. Here he was taken care of by relatives engaged in coffee-planting. As a boy of 17 he spent time in the jungles of Malabar. Coffee-planting in the Wynaad declined and Alcock obtained a post a commission agent's office in Calcutta. This office closed soon and he worked from 1878-1880 in Purulia as an agent recruiting coolies for the Assam tea gardens. While here an acquaintance, Duncan Cameron, left him a Macmillan book by Michael Foster Physiology Primer. This book he wrote in his autobiographical notes That little book was to me what the light from heaven was to St. Paul. It set my face towards natural science.He regretted that he never got to know Michael Foster, but throughout the rest of my life I have thought of him with the gratitude of a disciple, for his Primer and for his Textbook of Physiology which I got as soon as I had mastered his Primer. Its philosophical spirit impressed me very deeply.

Another friend he made in Purulia was Lieut.-Col. J. J. Wood, then Deputy Sanitary Commissioner there. Wood invited him to the study of botany, natural history and chemistry. During this time Alcock even dug graves to study the bodies of humans. He studied bones using Holden's Osteology - Thence I crept on by means of a Nicholson's ' Manual of Zoology ' to the ' Descent of Man ' and the ' Origin of Species.' I was now resolved to be a doctor, but I could not think how it was to come to pass.

In 1880 he took up a post as assistant master in a European boys school at Darjeeling. Here Col. Wood left his son under the tutelage of Alcock. In 1881 Alcock's elder sister moved to India as her husband was a distinguished officer in the Indian Civil Service. Alcock was then able to sail home to begin his medical training. He found Aberdeen University economical and entered Marischal College in October, 1881. In the first year he took the medal in Alleyne Nicholson's class of Natural History. Even when "unqualified" he served as House Surgeon in the Aberdeen Royal Infirmary. In 1885 he graduated M.B., C.M., "with honourable distinction" and joined the Indian Medical Service.

Alcock sailed to India in 1886 and served in the north-west frontier with Sikh and Punjab regiments. In Baluchistan he dealt with his first case of a fatal snake bite from an Echis carinatus

Echis carinatus

Echis carinatus is a venomous viper species found in parts of the Middle East and Central Asia, and especially the Indian subcontinent. It is the smallest member of the Big Four snakes...

. In 1888 he was offered the position of Surgeon-Naturalist to the Indian Marine Survey. He took it and joined the survey ship "Investigator" and remained until 1892. Here he studied marine zoology and he published many papers along with James Wood-Mason

James Wood-Mason

James Wood-Mason was a Scottish zoologist who worked in the Indian Museum at Calcutta from 1877 succeeding Prof. John Anderson. He made many collections of marine animals and lepidoptera.-Publications:...

 and others. He wrote about these years in A Naturalist in Indian Seas

A Naturalist in Indian Seas

A Naturalist in Indian Seas, or, Four Years with the Royal Indian Marine Survey Ship Investigator is a 1902 publication by Alfred William Alcock, a British naturalist and carcinologist. The book is mostly a narrative describing the Investigators journey through areas of the Indian Ocean, such as...

 (1902) which is considered a classic in natural history travel.

In 1892 Alcock resigned and became Deputy Sanitary Commissioner for Eastern Bengal. In 1893 Wood-Mason went home and Alcock agreed to act for him during his absence. Wood-Mason died on his way to England and Alcock was appointed as the Superintendent of the Indian Museum. In 1895-96 he was on the Pamis Boundary Commission and wrote the Natural History results of this expedition. At the Indian Museum, Alcock worked on improving the public galleries of Reptiles, Fishes and Invertebrates. Sir George King who was the chairman of the Trustees supported him, however after his retirement, Alcock was given little support. Lord Curzon decided to exhibit the collections of the Indian Museum as a memorial to Queen Victoria in 1903 and Alcock was ordered to "to vacate the gallery of Fishes at a moment's notice." Alcock protested to the Trustees that "it would be disgraceful to dismantle a gallery of Invertebrates which included an exhibit of the recent mosquito-malaria discoveries, at a moment when those discoveries seemed at last to have driven into the thickest British skull the great truth that the study of zoology mas of some use to mankind." The gallery was spared but the library was to be cleared. These experiences caused Alcock to quit and he returned home in 1906 writing to the Government "telling him what an impossible post the Superintendentship of the Museum was and begging him to get it improved for the sake of the Science of Zoology and of my successors." In the letter Alcock wrote that Zoology was " a branch of pure science pregnant with human interest", important to the state "in matters of education, in matters agricultural and veterinary, and in the vital matter of public health. He suggested the establishment of an Indian Zoological Survey

Zoological Survey of India

The Zoological Survey of India is a premier Indian organisation in zoological research and studies. It was established on 1 July 1916 to promote the survey, exploration and research of the fauna in the region...

 with a museum and laboratory administered by zoologists along the lines of the Geological and Botanical Surveys.

He was asked to withdraw his resignation and rejoin with promises of reform at the Indian Museum, however he wrote that I stuck to my resolve that if the position at the Indian Museum was to be improved by my efforts no cynical potentate at Simla should ever say that I had got it altered for my own benefit.

Back in London he made acquaintance with Sir Patrick Manson

Patrick Manson

Sir Patrick Manson was a Scottish physician who made important discoveries in parasitology and was the founder of the tropical medicine field....

 who he had known since student days. He began to work on tropical medicine at the School of Tropical Medicine at the Albert Dock.

In 1897 he married Margaret Forbes Cornwall, of Aberdeen. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1901. He was made a C.I.E. in 1903 and received the Barclay Medal from the Asiatic Society of Bengal in 1907.

Achievements

Alcock was primarily a systematist, describing a wide range of species. He worked on aspects of biology and physiology of fishes, their distributions, evolution and behaviour. Some of his works were published in "Zoological Gleanings from the R.I.M.S. ' Investigator,' " published in " Scientific Memoirs by Medical Officers of the Army of India," Part XII, Simla, 1901.

He worked on Fishes, Decapod Crustacea, and Deep Sea Madreporarian Corals. He published in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, the Annals and Magazine of Natural History as well as catalogues published by the Indian Museum. His "Illustrations of the Zoology of the R.I.M.S. ' Investigator,' ", a series with illustrations by Indian artists (mainly A. C. Chowdhary and S. C. Mondul) has been considered as exceptional in beauty and accuracy.

Alcock's school education of classics and literature led him to write in a Victorian literary style. Alcock also specialized in medical entomology and wrote a text book "Entomology for Medical Officers " (1st edition 1911, 2nd 1920).
He also worked on a biography of Sir Patrick Manson.

Eponymous species

• Bathynemertes alcocki Laidlaw, 1906
• Sabellaria alcocki
• Pourtalesia alcocki Koehler, 1914
• Aristeus alcocki Ramadan, 1938
• Pasiphaea alcocki (Wood-Mason
  James Wood-Mason
  James Wood-Mason was a Scottish zoologist who worked in the Indian Museum at Calcutta from 1877 succeeding Prof. John Anderson. He made many collections of marine animals and lepidoptera.-Publications:...
  
  & Alcock, 1891)

External links

• A guide to the zoological collections exhibited in the fish gallery of the Indian Museum (1899) (Scanned book)
• Illustrations of the Zoology of the Royal Indian Marine Survey Ship Investigator, under the command of Commander T H Heming. Fishes Part V, Crustacea Part VI Mollusca Part II . Alfred Alcock. Calcutta, 1898 (scanned book)
• A descriptive catalogue of the Indian deep-sea fishes in the Indian Museum : being a revised account of the deep-sea fishes collected by the Royal Indian marine survey ship Investigator (scanned book)