Beatrix Potter

Mycologist (a specialist in the study of fungi)

A black and white image of a woman wearing a black dress

Image from Wikimedia commons

  • BORN Helen Beatrix Potter; married name: Beatrix Heelis, 28th July 1866, London, England, UK
  • DIED 22nd December 1943, near Sawrey, Cumbria, England, UK
  • WORKED Kensington, London; Dalguise, Perthshire, Scotland; Dunkeld, Perthshire, Scotland; Cumbria, England
  • HONOURS As a woman, Beatrix Potter was not allowed entrance to meetings of the Linnean Society, so could not present her scientific paper herself. It took the Linnean Society until 1997 to issue a posthumous apology to her for the gender discrimination which prevented them treating her research with the recognition it deserved.

Entry by Catherine Booth

PODCAST

Catherine Booth (Science Historian and retired Science Curator, National Library of Scotland) discusses the life and work of Beatrix Potter with mycologist Professor Lynne Boddy from the Fungal Ecology Group, Cardiff University. Their conversation is interwoven with music by Frances M Lynch (below). You will find fascinating insights into Potter’s work and the amazing underground world of fungi.

Artistic Connections

Beatrix Potter is very famous as a children’s author and artist, having written and illustrated 22 books with stories of the imaginary world of animals such as Peter Rabbit. She also produced hundreds of drawings and watercolours of fungi, lichens and fossils, now held in various collections including the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Armitt Museum in the Lake District, and, in Scotland, in the Perth Museum and Art Gallery.

MUSIC


Title: Beatrix Potter’s Fantastical Fungi MEGASONG
Music by: HAWKSHEAD PRIMARY SCHOOL
Words by: HAWKSHEAD PRIMARY SCHOOL
Written in: September 2021
For: Voices, noises and fungi drawings
Performed by: the composers
First performance (of the music): online as part of the electric voice theatre performance “Beatrix Potter’s Secret Kingdom” for Fungus Day, 2nd Oct 2021
Film by: Hannah Fox, first released online as part of the Beatrix Potter MEGASONG Competition Finale event on Nov 10th 2021

The competition winners film can be viewed here.

Title: Fantastic Fungi
Scientist: Beatrix Potter
Words by: SARAH MIRKIN
Additional Music: FRANCES M LYNCH
Arranged by: Frances M Lynch
Written in: October 2021
For: Instruments, electronic effects and voice chorus
Performed by: Sarah Mirkin
First Performed: 10th November 2021 for the Beatrix Potter Fungi Song Competition

Sarah’s Fungi Song by Sarah Mirkin won 1st Prize in electric voice theatre’s Beatrix Potter Fungi Song Competition in November 2021.

The composer wanted to have marimba, strings and some electronic effects and a chorus of voices – this recording was performed by Frances M Lynch who also produced and arranged it with Herbie Clarke.

Fungi cell walls are made of chitin
There is Dingy Twiglet, Lemon Disco and Lichen
Fungi exist in space
They survive all over the place

Fungi grow and grow
They grow in Arctic snow

Fungi are older than the dino
They spread longer than the rhino
They eat dead plants and leaves
Even wood from trees
Some can cause disease
Others help plants grow with ease

Fungi are illegally picked
In Epping Forest foragers are nicked

Fungi give lemonade bubbles
Even though they can cause troubles
Fungi are in yeast
They’re in chocolate for our feast
They can be microscopic

Title: Fungus Fun
Scientist: Beatrix Potter
Words by: Ingrid Birchall
Additional Music: FRANCES M LYNCH
Arranged by: Frances M Lynch
Written in: October 2021
For: Voices, piano and violin
Performed by: Sarah Mirkin
First Performed: 10th November 2021 for the Beatrix Potter Fungi Song Competition

“Fungus Fun!” by Ingrid Birchall won the Music Prize in electric voice theatre’s Beatrix Potter Fungi Song Competition in November 2021.

The composer was keen that it should be arranged for 4 voices, piano and violin so you can hear the voices of our singers, Margaret Cameron & Samantha Houston – Mezzos, Frances M Lynch – Soprano (and instruments) and Julian Stocker – Tenor

Fungus, Fungus is the best,
Fly Agaric is better than the rest,
It is red and has white spots,
And they are the whitest ever dots,

This poisonous toadstool is red and spotty,
If you eat it, it makes you feel grotty,
The soft white spots are nice to touch,
But you will need to wash your hands so much.

Hydnum Repandum is also good,
The top’s uneven and it stands like wood,
The Hedgehog mushroom is its other name,
Even though the creature’s not the same.

This pale mushroom you can eat,
And some recipes are really neat,
Under the cap there are short stringy spines,
That look like lots of small lines.

Title: Without Fungi
Music by: FRANCES M LYNCH
Words by: Frances M Lynch in collaboration with Professor Lynne Boddy
Written: September 2021
For: 6 solo voices (SS, MM, T, Br) and chorus
Performed by: electric voice theatre: Frances M Lynch (soprano) Margaret Cameron and Samantha Houston (Mezzos) Laurence Panter (Tenor)
First Performed: live on Zoom for UK Fungus Day on 2nd October 2021, soloist Samantha Houston

The music maps the outward progress of hyphae as they move outwards and away from the centre weaving words and phrases to create the mycelium:

With out
With in
fungi
You wood
Would
knot
exist

Title: Beatrix Potter and the Postman
Music by: FRANCES M LYNCH
Words by: Frances M Lynch in collaboration with Catherine Booth
Written in: 2018
For: Mixed voices and soloist
Performed by: electric voice theatre‘s Voices for the Future Virtual Choir at the online event ‘Beatrix Potter’s Secret Kingdom’ for UK Fungus Day, May 2022
First performance: THE BIG SHED, 22nd September 2018, by KILLIN, KENMORE and STROUD GREEN PRIMARY schools with Dr Patricia Fara (speaker) and Frances M Lynch and Margaret Cameron (singers)

The recording was made at 4 different live performances in Scotland and England. It is a fun, sing-a-long song exploring Potter’s relationship with Charles McIntosh, who was her family’s postman in Dunkeld when they were on holiday there. He was an expert in fungi – he had time to study them on his rounds! – and later on Beatrix would ask him to send her specimens in the post and she would send him back some of her watercolours in return.

Beatrix Potter asked the postman pick some fungi send them to me
Pack them in a proper parcel put them in the post-box. 

She was a mycologist. What’s a mycologist?
She studied mushrooms. Oh! Not mycolos?
NO! She studied mushrooms. How?
Under a microscope. Gosh
And she drew rabbits. Under a microscope?
NO! In the garden

Dear Mr. McIntosh,
Do you think you could send me a fungus
Do you think you could tell me all about it
I will study and sketch them and paint them in watercolours
Dear Mr. McIntosh, and send them to Dunkeld for you to admire

Education

Dalguise House near Dunkeld where the Potter family took holidays. Image by Kirsty Smith / Dalguise House near Dunkeld (Creative Commons CC BY-SA 2.0)

Being a sickly child, Beatrix Potter was educated at home by governesses. Her family encouraged her to take formal art classes, and she gained a certificate from the National Art Training School near her London home, but she preferred to draw from nature. She had no formal higher education, but became a self-taught naturalist as she explored the countryside, especially during holidays such as in Perthshire and the Lake District. Charles McIntosh of Dunkeld, an amateur but very knowledgeable naturalist, encouraged her fascination with fungi, answering queries she sent him from London, and posting her further specimens.

Occupations

Artist
She was a talented artist and water-colourist from an early age, producing hundreds of drawings and watercolours. Her first interests in fungi were inspired by her desire to draw them.

Hygrocybe coccinea, or Scarlet waxcap. Watercolour by Beatrix Potter. Original in Armitt Museum. (Image by Wikimedia Commons)

Mycologist

Mycology, the study of fungi, became a passion for Beatrix. She examined specimens under a microscope, made meticulous drawings of what she observed, and sought help if she could not identify them herself.

Fossil-collector
Visits to a friend in Gloucestershire introduced her to fossil-collecting, which excited her so much that she began to draw and paint them, curious to find out what they were.

Children’s author

Peter Rabbit. Image by Wikimedia Commons

Her tales of animals began with an illustrated letter she sent to a sick child. The child’s mother encouraged her to publish the story, and she expanded it with that purpose.  Initially unable to find a publisher, she self-published The Tale of Peter Rabbit in 1901, making only 250 copies. Finally she found a publisher in Frederick Warne & Co., and her first book, followed by the others, was a huge success, as they have continued to be today.

Farmer
Following the success of her books, and always being a keen conservationist, she purchased the farm, Hill Top in the Lake District, and spent as much time there as possible, acquiring stock and farming the land.

Sheep-breeder
Beatrix Potter became a breeder of Herdwick sheep, and often won prizes at the local shows.

Herdwick sheep. Image from eskdaleshow.co.uk

Scientific Achievements

  • We may not have known about Beatrix Potter as a scientist, had it not been for the detective work of Dr Mary Noble (1911-2002), seed pathologist and mycologist. In 1975, Dr Noble was researching the life of naturalist and postman, Charles McIntosh, and chanced upon his connection with Beatrix Potter. This story is well-told in the article in the Herald 26 October 1996 by journalist, Aileen Little (see link below). We now know that Beatrix produced scientifically accurate drawings of fungi and animals showing that she had studied them microscopically.
  • She carried out pioneering research into the germination of fungal and lichen spores, which resulted in one scientific paper on fungi called: On the germination of spores of Agaricineae.  This was presented to the Linnean Society in 1897, and although it received a good reception from some biologists, it was said to need some modification.  This was never done, and the paper has sadly not survived. Using her letters and notes, eminent mycologist, Professor Roy Watling, formerly of the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh, pieced together the presumed content of this scientific paper. He was able to verify her observations and theories on fungal species she had scrutinized.

    Lichen on a tree in Perthshire (personal photograph by the researcher)

  • Lichens in Beatrix Potter’s day were widely thought to be single living plants. However a few European lichenologists believed that they consisted of both fungi and algae living together within the same organism.  From her own observations, Beatrix Potter took the European view, causing her to be dismissed as an amateur by many eminent British botanists. Later scientific evidence backed up the dual nature of these organisms. In 2016, an article by Spiribille and others published in the journal Science proposed that a third species may also be involved – an unrelated yeast-like fungus. We can speculate that Beatrix Potter would have been very excited to learn of this new scientific discovery, if she had lived to see it.
  • She collected and examined fossils, and visited the Natural History Museum near her London home in order to help identify them.

Did You Know?

Beatrix Potter is believed to have found names for her animal characters in Brompton Cemetery near her London home. Graves there have names such as Peter Rabbett, Jeremiah Fisher, Mr McGregor and Mr Nutkins.

She often painted what she could see from her garden or windows, and if you visit her farmhouse at Hill Top, you can see some of the exact views which she has replicated in her children’s books

She sold some of her paintings to help raise money to buy tracts of land in the Lake District, and after her death, she left about 4,000 acres to the National Trust. This helped prevent large scale business development of scenic areas of the Lake District, now part of the Lake District National Park.

An Inspiring Woman

Although she has no publications to prove her discoveries, her contribution to research into fungi is recognised by scientists today.

Her fungal drawings and paintings are often reproduced, so are able to reach a wider audience.

Many of her illustrations in her children’s books, although not intended to be scientific, are true to nature, and much enjoyed by children and adults alike.  These books have reached international audiences.

She used the countryside as an open laboratory, which anyone of any age can still do today.

Links