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George Edward massee (1850–1917)
interest others in those subjects in which he himself excelled, and having roped them in he was ever ready to help and inspire them to put their whole energy into the work. He was an amateur in the finest sense of the word and a man of sterling character. I am indebted to Miss Agnes Crossland for most of the material from which this note is drawn up.
GEORGE EDWARD MASSEE ( 1850- 19 17). By]. Ramsbottom. George Edward Massee, the first President of the British Mycological Society, died at Sevenoaks on February 16th, 1917, succumbing to an attack of influenza, and was buried at Richmond, Surrey. Born at Scampston, a hamlet in East Yorkshire, on December 20th, 1850, he was educated at a private school. It was intended that he should become a farmer as was his father, but, according to his own statement, he did very little good at farming. While working on the farm he became interested in wild flowers and in the larger fungi and drew and painted them. He was sent to the York School of Art, where he gained the national medal for the drawing of flowers from nature. His first publication was on Hritish Woodpeckers which appeared in the Intel. lectual 0 bserver for 1867. This paper of five pages and a coloured plate was remarkably good for a youth of sixteen. His mother's cousin was Dr. Richard Spruce, the botanist and traveller, and he encouraged him in his botanical studies. Later Massee went into residence at Downing College, Cambridge, but did not stay the necessary time to take a degree. Whether he continued his natural history studies there is not known. Cambridge had not, at that time, awakened from her deplorable sloth towards natural science. Spruce was able to give him the opportunity of going to the West Indies and South America for the purpose of orchid hunting and botanizing generally. He crossed to America on a French boat, traversed the isthmus of Panama, and then sailed along
47 0 the coast to Quito where he struck inland and made his way up the Napo. His only white companion was a Dr. Brown, picked up by chance on the way: the others were Indians hired from the Roman Catholic missionaries, who seemed to have extraordinary power over the inhabitants of the scattered villages. On their journeyings they collected orchids, fungi and ferns. On one occasion Massee was ill with dysentery for three weeks in an Indian hut unconscious some of the time and nursed by an old squaw. Hundreds of miles of mule-riding gave him a somewhat philosophical idea of a mule's characteristics, and in later years the sight of one of these animals called up reminiscences of perilous paths and a wise, cautious animal sometimes moved to indiscretions by the persuasion of a wisp of lighted straw attached to its tail. Massee had a painting which he himself had executed, depicting him on mule-back followed by an Indian leading another mule, with a few red-flowered cacti and a wide expanse of desert behind stretching to the distant Andes. While in the forest he lived on rice meal and an occasional monkey which cured him of all enthusiasm concerning the" simple life I I which he regarded as being quite unobjectionable except when one is' hunting for one's breakfast at supper time. The Indians persuaded him to go barefoot and he was afterwards very reluctant to return to his boots. One of his remarks about the Indians was that they were so lazy that they would spend an hour catching one of their half-wild horses in order to ride a few yards. Amongst his experiences in South America were earthquakes and a narrow escape from a puma which sprang down from the overhanging branch of a tree. He sent horne in bulk Oncidium maCTanthum and Nanodes Medusae. Returning home on a French boat, he and a few young Frenchmen joined the Foreign Legion as the Franco-Prussian War was then in progress. He transferred to the 4th Chasseurs-he had the name of this regiment tatooed on his left arm-but saw little or no fighting as the big engagements of the short war were then over. His mother, being alarmed, got into touch with the authorities and had him sent home, where she prevailed upon him to remain on the farm with his father: he was an only son. While working on the farm he continued his botanical studies, specializing on fungi and plant diseases. When some years afterwards his father died, he and his mother moved to Scarborough where he taught botany in various schools and studied geology. About this time he nearly fixed on geology as a career for after working hard and passing an examination he was offered a post from which
47 1 he withdrew at the last moment. About this time he painted a large number of Agarics and his work attracted the attention of M. C. Cooke, who afterwards used many of the paintings for his Illustrations.· Massee collected assiduously in the neighbourhood of Scarborough, and this district remains one of the best worked in a county which has been explored, from a mycological standpoint, more thoroughly than a!1y other. His first paper on fungi appeared in Science Goss~p, 1880, and had the title Notes on some smaller fungi, including Myxomycetes. In the early eightiest he and his mother removed to London and eventually to Kew. He now began to do a certain amount of popular lecturing on such subjects as The probable origin and spread of life, The dawn of life, The teachings of biology, New discoveries in the motion and variations of plants, etc. He was appointed lecturer on botany to the London Society for the extension of university teaching and published some of his lectures in 1891 with the title Evolution of Plant Life. This dealt mainly with the evolution of cryptogams and showed a certain amount of originality though it suffered from uneven treatment. At this time he was working as a free-lance in the Kew Herbarium, and published in 1891 a work on Phycomycetes and Ustilagineae with the ambitious title, British Fung~-" it is hoped that other volumes dealing with the remainder of the fungi will not be long delayed." This work, though much praised by mycologists at the time, is, even for its period, rather a failure. The following year appeared a Monograph of the Myxogastres which was completely overshadowed and outclassed by the Lister monograph which appeared two years later. In 1892 appeared also the first volume of British Fungus Flora (1892-95), a work in four volumes. Unfortunately a rather bizarre arrangement was adopted which made the portion on Basidiomycetes (more than half the work) rather difficult to use. This work was intended to have been a complete fungus flora but owing partly to the amount of space wasted, only the Basidiomycetes, Discomycetes and Hyphomycetes were treated. During the years 1892-93 Massee worked at the British Museum being principally engaged upon the preparation of the exhibition stands of micro-fungi in the public gallery, a work which was completed and almost wholly done by Miss Lorrain Smith. \Vhilst working in the Botanical Depart• Massee's valuable series of paintings were acquired by the British Museum in 1892. t He drew most of the plates in Spruce's Hepaticae of the .4mazon (1885).
47 2 ment he and Batters decided to acquire Grevillea, Cook's quarterly cryptogamic periodical which he had edited for twenty years and which he now wished to dispose of. Massee acted as editor for the two volumes (XXI.-II., 1892-4), after which the publication ceased although Massee always held that such a periodical could be made a paying concern even at the present time. Cooke retired from Kew in 1893 and Massee was then appointed Principal Assistant in Cryptogams. Numerous papers had appeared from his pen during the previous few years. He settled down to his pathological work at Kew; in fact he created the study there. His knowledge of practical farming stood him in good stead and saved him from many errors liable to be made by those who do not understand agricultural principles. His Text Book of Plant Diseases appeared in 1899 and passed through three editions, being superseded in 19IO by the more ambitious though hardly more satisfactory Diseases of Cultivated Plants and Trees. In 1902 appeared the useful European Fungus Flora: Agaricaceae. The Fungus Flora of Yorkshire, written in collaboration with C. Crossland, appeared from 1902 to 1905. In 1906 a Text Book of Fungi was published. This shows a big advance on previous British text books, but lacks many of the points required in an elementary introduction. The cheap and useful British Fungi and Lichens appeared in [911 with coloured plates by Ivy Massee: the title is misleading, as lichens are barely mentioned. His last hook, \\ ritten in collaboration with his daughter, Mildews, Rusts and Smuts, was published in 1913. It did not add to his reputation. Massee had a world-wide reputation as a mycologist and when our Society was founded in 1896- he was elected president, a post which he held for a second year. He then resigned. During the years he had studied the various groups he acquired a knowledge of fungi which was practically unrivalled. But though often brilliant he was often careless: if he had had any capacity whatever for taking pains he would have been a genius. He had a clear mind and was regardless of authority; though he often totally disregarded results which would have prevented him reaching some rather startling conclusions. It was perhaps the result of his manner of training and of his period. He commenced when Berkeley was facile princeps in British mycology; Cooke followed and then Massee naturally forged ahead on Cooke's retirement. But times were changing and though Massee's opinions in systematic questions received the consideration • He appears in the photograph in Vol. IV., facing p. 182 (1915).
473
due to his extended knowledge, when he attempted to criticize -or even ridicule-branches of the subject in which he had obviously no practical experience he did not add to his reputation. His cynicism often led him to say, and even to do, things which were much resented. His experiences with some of the younger school who called themselves mycologists and yet professed to despise" sPecies" probably had much to do with a sharpness of tongue which seemed, on the whole, quite harmless when it did not run off the lines. I, personally, always found Massee very kind and jovial, and on one occasion he strongly advised a certain line of action where he thought the alternative would cause pain. He was well liked by the gardeners at Kew to whom he lectured on plant pathology. His knowledge of the practical side of their craft, his wide interests, his unorthodox manner, and his virility even to the end impressed them to an extraordinary degree. For many years he was the recognised leader of th~ fungus forays around London, and knew the flora of Eppmg and Kew Gardens (of which he compiled the list of fungi) remarkably well. He was the Chairman of the Mycological Committee of the Yorkshire Naturalists' Union, which was founded in 1892 mainly as a result of his enthusiasm and energy. He was President of the Quekett Society in 1902, and was one of the original recipients of the Victoria Medal of Horticulture of the Royal Horticultural Society. Resign. ing from the Linnean Society in 1915 ~e was elected an Associate the following year. He was honorary member of many natural history societies. Having reached the age limit (extension) he retired from Kew in 1915 and removed to Sevenoaks. Massee ranks with Berkeley and Cooke as one of the foremost mycologists of this country. He published over two hundred and fifty original papers. I wish to thank Miss Ivy Massee for supplying me with certain information.
GEORGE EDWARD MASSEE ( 1850- 19 17). By]. Ramsbottom. George Edward Massee, the first President of the British Mycological Society, died at Sevenoaks on February 16th, 1917, succumbing to an attack of influenza, and was buried at Richmond, Surrey. Born at Scampston, a hamlet in East Yorkshire, on December 20th, 1850, he was educated at a private school. It was intended that he should become a farmer as was his father, but, according to his own statement, he did very little good at farming. While working on the farm he became interested in wild flowers and in the larger fungi and drew and painted them. He was sent to the York School of Art, where he gained the national medal for the drawing of flowers from nature. His first publication was on Hritish Woodpeckers which appeared in the Intel. lectual 0 bserver for 1867. This paper of five pages and a coloured plate was remarkably good for a youth of sixteen. His mother's cousin was Dr. Richard Spruce, the botanist and traveller, and he encouraged him in his botanical studies. Later Massee went into residence at Downing College, Cambridge, but did not stay the necessary time to take a degree. Whether he continued his natural history studies there is not known. Cambridge had not, at that time, awakened from her deplorable sloth towards natural science. Spruce was able to give him the opportunity of going to the West Indies and South America for the purpose of orchid hunting and botanizing generally. He crossed to America on a French boat, traversed the isthmus of Panama, and then sailed along
47 0 the coast to Quito where he struck inland and made his way up the Napo. His only white companion was a Dr. Brown, picked up by chance on the way: the others were Indians hired from the Roman Catholic missionaries, who seemed to have extraordinary power over the inhabitants of the scattered villages. On their journeyings they collected orchids, fungi and ferns. On one occasion Massee was ill with dysentery for three weeks in an Indian hut unconscious some of the time and nursed by an old squaw. Hundreds of miles of mule-riding gave him a somewhat philosophical idea of a mule's characteristics, and in later years the sight of one of these animals called up reminiscences of perilous paths and a wise, cautious animal sometimes moved to indiscretions by the persuasion of a wisp of lighted straw attached to its tail. Massee had a painting which he himself had executed, depicting him on mule-back followed by an Indian leading another mule, with a few red-flowered cacti and a wide expanse of desert behind stretching to the distant Andes. While in the forest he lived on rice meal and an occasional monkey which cured him of all enthusiasm concerning the" simple life I I which he regarded as being quite unobjectionable except when one is' hunting for one's breakfast at supper time. The Indians persuaded him to go barefoot and he was afterwards very reluctant to return to his boots. One of his remarks about the Indians was that they were so lazy that they would spend an hour catching one of their half-wild horses in order to ride a few yards. Amongst his experiences in South America were earthquakes and a narrow escape from a puma which sprang down from the overhanging branch of a tree. He sent horne in bulk Oncidium maCTanthum and Nanodes Medusae. Returning home on a French boat, he and a few young Frenchmen joined the Foreign Legion as the Franco-Prussian War was then in progress. He transferred to the 4th Chasseurs-he had the name of this regiment tatooed on his left arm-but saw little or no fighting as the big engagements of the short war were then over. His mother, being alarmed, got into touch with the authorities and had him sent home, where she prevailed upon him to remain on the farm with his father: he was an only son. While working on the farm he continued his botanical studies, specializing on fungi and plant diseases. When some years afterwards his father died, he and his mother moved to Scarborough where he taught botany in various schools and studied geology. About this time he nearly fixed on geology as a career for after working hard and passing an examination he was offered a post from which
47 1 he withdrew at the last moment. About this time he painted a large number of Agarics and his work attracted the attention of M. C. Cooke, who afterwards used many of the paintings for his Illustrations.· Massee collected assiduously in the neighbourhood of Scarborough, and this district remains one of the best worked in a county which has been explored, from a mycological standpoint, more thoroughly than a!1y other. His first paper on fungi appeared in Science Goss~p, 1880, and had the title Notes on some smaller fungi, including Myxomycetes. In the early eightiest he and his mother removed to London and eventually to Kew. He now began to do a certain amount of popular lecturing on such subjects as The probable origin and spread of life, The dawn of life, The teachings of biology, New discoveries in the motion and variations of plants, etc. He was appointed lecturer on botany to the London Society for the extension of university teaching and published some of his lectures in 1891 with the title Evolution of Plant Life. This dealt mainly with the evolution of cryptogams and showed a certain amount of originality though it suffered from uneven treatment. At this time he was working as a free-lance in the Kew Herbarium, and published in 1891 a work on Phycomycetes and Ustilagineae with the ambitious title, British Fung~-" it is hoped that other volumes dealing with the remainder of the fungi will not be long delayed." This work, though much praised by mycologists at the time, is, even for its period, rather a failure. The following year appeared a Monograph of the Myxogastres which was completely overshadowed and outclassed by the Lister monograph which appeared two years later. In 1892 appeared also the first volume of British Fungus Flora (1892-95), a work in four volumes. Unfortunately a rather bizarre arrangement was adopted which made the portion on Basidiomycetes (more than half the work) rather difficult to use. This work was intended to have been a complete fungus flora but owing partly to the amount of space wasted, only the Basidiomycetes, Discomycetes and Hyphomycetes were treated. During the years 1892-93 Massee worked at the British Museum being principally engaged upon the preparation of the exhibition stands of micro-fungi in the public gallery, a work which was completed and almost wholly done by Miss Lorrain Smith. \Vhilst working in the Botanical Depart• Massee's valuable series of paintings were acquired by the British Museum in 1892. t He drew most of the plates in Spruce's Hepaticae of the .4mazon (1885).
47 2 ment he and Batters decided to acquire Grevillea, Cook's quarterly cryptogamic periodical which he had edited for twenty years and which he now wished to dispose of. Massee acted as editor for the two volumes (XXI.-II., 1892-4), after which the publication ceased although Massee always held that such a periodical could be made a paying concern even at the present time. Cooke retired from Kew in 1893 and Massee was then appointed Principal Assistant in Cryptogams. Numerous papers had appeared from his pen during the previous few years. He settled down to his pathological work at Kew; in fact he created the study there. His knowledge of practical farming stood him in good stead and saved him from many errors liable to be made by those who do not understand agricultural principles. His Text Book of Plant Diseases appeared in 1899 and passed through three editions, being superseded in 19IO by the more ambitious though hardly more satisfactory Diseases of Cultivated Plants and Trees. In 1902 appeared the useful European Fungus Flora: Agaricaceae. The Fungus Flora of Yorkshire, written in collaboration with C. Crossland, appeared from 1902 to 1905. In 1906 a Text Book of Fungi was published. This shows a big advance on previous British text books, but lacks many of the points required in an elementary introduction. The cheap and useful British Fungi and Lichens appeared in [911 with coloured plates by Ivy Massee: the title is misleading, as lichens are barely mentioned. His last hook, \\ ritten in collaboration with his daughter, Mildews, Rusts and Smuts, was published in 1913. It did not add to his reputation. Massee had a world-wide reputation as a mycologist and when our Society was founded in 1896- he was elected president, a post which he held for a second year. He then resigned. During the years he had studied the various groups he acquired a knowledge of fungi which was practically unrivalled. But though often brilliant he was often careless: if he had had any capacity whatever for taking pains he would have been a genius. He had a clear mind and was regardless of authority; though he often totally disregarded results which would have prevented him reaching some rather startling conclusions. It was perhaps the result of his manner of training and of his period. He commenced when Berkeley was facile princeps in British mycology; Cooke followed and then Massee naturally forged ahead on Cooke's retirement. But times were changing and though Massee's opinions in systematic questions received the consideration • He appears in the photograph in Vol. IV., facing p. 182 (1915).
473
due to his extended knowledge, when he attempted to criticize -or even ridicule-branches of the subject in which he had obviously no practical experience he did not add to his reputation. His cynicism often led him to say, and even to do, things which were much resented. His experiences with some of the younger school who called themselves mycologists and yet professed to despise" sPecies" probably had much to do with a sharpness of tongue which seemed, on the whole, quite harmless when it did not run off the lines. I, personally, always found Massee very kind and jovial, and on one occasion he strongly advised a certain line of action where he thought the alternative would cause pain. He was well liked by the gardeners at Kew to whom he lectured on plant pathology. His knowledge of the practical side of their craft, his wide interests, his unorthodox manner, and his virility even to the end impressed them to an extraordinary degree. For many years he was the recognised leader of th~ fungus forays around London, and knew the flora of Eppmg and Kew Gardens (of which he compiled the list of fungi) remarkably well. He was the Chairman of the Mycological Committee of the Yorkshire Naturalists' Union, which was founded in 1892 mainly as a result of his enthusiasm and energy. He was President of the Quekett Society in 1902, and was one of the original recipients of the Victoria Medal of Horticulture of the Royal Horticultural Society. Resign. ing from the Linnean Society in 1915 ~e was elected an Associate the following year. He was honorary member of many natural history societies. Having reached the age limit (extension) he retired from Kew in 1915 and removed to Sevenoaks. Massee ranks with Berkeley and Cooke as one of the foremost mycologists of this country. He published over two hundred and fifty original papers. I wish to thank Miss Ivy Massee for supplying me with certain information.