{{Short description|English photographer, researcher and ornithologist (1889–1973)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=March 2026 }} {{Use British English|date=March 2026}} {{Infobox person/Wikidata | image = Clemence Margaret Acland.webp | image_upright = yes | caption = Acland preparing her camera to photograph flycatchers | alt = Monochrome images of woman using a large format camera mounted on a tripod. She is wearing a skirt-suit, thick stockings and flat shoes. | fetchwikidata=ALL | dateformat = dmy }}
'''Clemence Margaret Acland''' (1889–1973) was an English nature photographer, ornithologist and researcher in bacteriology.
== Early life ==
Acland was born in Chelsea, London, on 9 October 1889 to Marion Sarah (née Macrorie) and Francis Edward Dyke Acland.<ref name="Bodleian">{{cite web |title=Collection: Papers of Clemence Margaret Acland |url=https://archives.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/repositories/2/resources/6196 |website=Bodleian Archives & Manuscripts |access-date=8 March 2026}}</ref><ref name="Peakall">{{cite journal |last1=Peakall |first1=David B. |title=Clemence M. Acland |journal=Ibis |date=1973 |volume=115 |issue=3 |page=421 |doi=10.1111/j.1474-919X.1973.tb01982.x}}</ref> Her father was a gunnery experimental officer with the Royal Artillery, described in an obituary as "one of the pioneers of modern gunnery", and later a civil engineer.<ref>{{cite web |title=Francis Edward Dyke Acland |url=https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/Francis_Edward_Dyke_Acland |website=Grace's Guide |access-date=8 March 2026}}</ref> Her paternal grandfather was Sir Henry Wentworth Dyke Acland, 1st Baronet, KCB FRS, a physician and Regius Professor of Medicine at the University of Oxford. Through him and his wife Sarah Acland (daughter of William Cotton), she was related to number of notable members of the Acland family. Her maternal grandfather was William Macrorie, bishop of Maritzburg.
She had two brothers (one younger than her) and an older sister.<ref>{{cite book |title=Dod's Peerage, Baronetage, Knightage etc. of Great Britain and Ireland for 1915 |date=1915 |page=44}}</ref> When she was four, the family moved to Banstead, Surrey.<ref name="Peakall" /><ref name="Homes">{{cite journal |last1=Homes |first1=R. C. |title=Obituary: Clemence Margaret Acland, 1889–1973 |journal=The London Naturalist |date=1974 |volume=53 |page=106 |url=https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/58377575}}</ref>
Acland was interested in birds from an early age, and would sometimes truant from school to watch them.<ref name="Homes" />
She served as a civilian bacteriological assistant in France in the First World War, with the Voluntary Aid Detachment.<ref name="Homes" /><ref name=LWWI>{{Lives of WWI}}</ref>
== Career ==
From 1920 to 1929 Acland was a research assistant in the Tuberculosis Department of the Welsh National School of Medicine at Cardiff, under Professor S. Lyle Cummins, with whom she co-authored some papers.<ref name="Bodleian" /><ref name="Peakall" />
She spent much of her life caring for her mother and sister.<ref name="Homes" />
During World War Two, she served as an ambulance driver.<ref name="Bodleian" /><ref name="Homes" />
== Ornithology ==
As early as 1910, Acland took part in bird ringing programmes devised by Harry Witherby.<ref name="Homes" />
In 1923, she was the first person to record differences in the bill patterns of Bewick's Swans.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Rees |first1=Eileen C. |last2=Scott |first2=Dafila |title=Bewick's Swan |date=2010 |publisher=T. & A. D. Poyser |location=London |isbn=978-1-4081-3310-1 |page=19 |edition=First }}</ref>
In 1924, with H. Morrey Salmon she carried out the first photographic census of a Gannet colony, that on Grassholm.<ref name="Peakall" /><ref name="Homes" /><ref>{{cite web |title=The Gannets of Grasshom, Part 10: Aftermath – a Happy Ending? |url=https://nation.cymru/feature/the-gannets-of-grasshom-part-10-aftermath-a-happy-ending/ |website=Nation.Cymru |access-date=8 March 2026 |date=19 November 2023}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Salmon, Harry Morrey (1891–1985), conservationist, naturalist, soldier |website=Dictionary of Welsh Biography |url=https://biography.wales/article/s12-SALM-MOR-1891?&query=St%20Illtud&lang[]=en&lang[]=en&sort=score&order=desc&rows=12&page=33 |access-date=8 March 2026}}</ref>
She was also active as a leader for the scouts and guides, leading field trips,<ref name="Peakall" /> and in September 1927 she gave a talk, "Bird Study For Guides in Autumn and Winter", on the BBC's 5WA Cardiff radio station.<ref>{{cite news |title=Cardiff (Call 5WA: 850 Kc.—353 metres) |work=Western Daily Press |date=15 September 1927 |page=3}}</ref> In October 1928 she gave another, "For Girl Guides: Wild Nature Seen During Camp",<ref>{{cite magazine |title=For Girl Guides: Miss M. Acland {{SIC}}: Wild nature seen during camp |magazine=The Radio Times |date=14 October 1928 |issue=263 |page=99}}</ref> and the following March another, "For Girl Guides: The Coming of Spring in the Bird World".<ref>{{cite magazine |title=For Girl Guides: Miss M. Acland {{SIC}}: The Coming of Spring in the Bird World |magazine=The Radio Times |date=17 March 1929 |issue=285 |page=642}}</ref>
Acland was one of only a handful of women to attend the 7th International Ornithological Congress in Oxford in 1934. At that time she was voluntary warden at the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds's reserves at Minsmere and Havergate.<ref name="BTO">{{cite web |title=3/ Her adventurous spirit never dulled, as in 1960, at the age of 70, she drove from Durban to Nairobi with the ornithologist Violet Maxse! Thanks for continuing to inspire us Clemence! 😀 BTO holds Clemence’s lantern slides and glass plate negatives in the Archives. |url=https://bsky.app/profile/btobirds.bsky.social/post/3mgjuqmwwk62y |website=Bluesky |publisher=BTO |access-date=8 March 2026 |date=8 March 2026}}</ref>
In 1935, she exhibited her work—alongside 12 other women and 74 men—at the International Exhibition of Nature Photography at the Natural History Museum in London.<ref>{{cite news |title=Tasks Women Are Too Impatient To Do |work=Daily News |date=17 October 1935 |page=8}}</ref> The exhibition included her photograph of an Avocet feigning injury to distract from its nest. That picture was also featured in an edition of ''Country Life''.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Whistler |first1=Hugh |title="Values" in Nature Photography |journal=Country Life |date=2 November 1935 |page=454–456}}</ref>
She served as a member of the editorial committee{{efn|The committee was chaired by R. C. Homes and also included C. B. Ashby, C. L. Collenette, R. S. R. Fitter, E. R. Parrinder and B. A. Richards.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Parmenter |first1=L. |title=The Society 1858 to 1957: The years 1927 to 1957 |journal=The London Naturalist |issue=37 |page=22}}</ref>}} for the London Natural History Society's publication ''The Birds of the London Area since 1900'', published in 1957 as part of the New Naturalist series.<ref name="Homes" /><ref>{{cite book |title=The Birds of the London Area since 1900 |date=1957 |publisher=Collins}}</ref> She gave professional lectures on birds, illustrated with her own photographs.<ref name="Homes" />
In 1960, aged 70, she drove with fellow ornithologist Violet Maxse {{convert|10,000|miles|km}} from Durban to Nairobi in a truck-caravan, taking six months to do so.<ref name="Peakall" /><ref name="Homes" /><ref name="BTO" /> She had made a previous visit to Africa, and had been inside the Arctic Circle on three journeys.<ref>{{cite news |title=Off On Safari—At 70! |work=Hartlepool Northern Daily Mail |date=13 June 1960 |page=7}}</ref>
== Recognition ==
In 1926 Acland was elected a member of the Zoological Photographic Club, becoming a life member in 1958, and in 1928 she was elected a Member of the British Ornithological Union.<ref name="BTO" /> She was also a member of the British Ornithologists' Club.<ref name="Peakall" />
== Death and legacy ==
Acland died at Banstead, on 10 March 1973 at age 83, never having married.<ref name="Peakall" /><ref name=LWWI /> Obituaries were published in ''Ibis'',<ref name="Peakall" /> and in ''The London Naturalist''.<ref name="Homes" />
Her papers, largely comprising diaries and birding notebooks, are held by the Bodleian Library.<ref name="Bodleian" /> Her lantern slides and glass plate negatives are in the archives of the British Trust for Ornithology.<ref name="BTO" />
== Selected papers ==
* {{cite journal |journal=British Birds |title=The Grassholm Gannets In 1924 – A Great Increase |first1=Clemence M. |last1=Acland |first2=H. Morrey |last2=Salmon |author-link2=Harry Morrey Salmon |volume=18 |issue=7 |pages=178–185 }} * {{cite journal |first=C. M. |last=Acland |journal=The Journal of Pathology and Bacteriology |volume=28 |issue=3 |pages=523–525 |title=An Improved Method of Mounting Pathologial Specimens in Flat Celluloid Cases |date=1925}} * {{cite journal |first1=S. L. |last1=Cummins |first2=C. M. |last2=Acland |journal=Tubercle |volume=9 |issue=1 |pages=1–9 |title=An analysis of blood-sedimentation tests and nuclear indices in 200 classified cases of tuberculosis |date=1927}} * {{cite journal |first1=S. L. |last1=Cummins |first2=D. |last2=Davies |first3=C. M. |last3=Acland |journal=Tubercle |volume=10 |issue=7 |pages=310–312 |title=Living Tubercle Bacilli in a Septic Tank Effluent |date=1929}}
== Notes == {{Notelist}}
== References == {{Reflist}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Acland, Clemence Margaret}} Category:1889 births Category:1973 deaths Category:20th-century English women scientists Category:20th-century British women photographers Category:Women ornithologists Category:People from Banstead Category:Scientists from Cardiff Category:People associated with Cardiff University Category:BBC radio presenters Category:Royal Society for the Protection of Birds people Category:20th-century English photographers Category:English ornithologists Category:English bacteriologists Category:Women bacteriologists Category:Photographers from the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea Category:People from Chelsea, London