Obituary notice of George Stewardson Brady (with portrait), 1832-1921

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OBITUARY NOTICE

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GEORGE STEWARDSON BRADY, 1832—1921.

G. S. Brapy, M.D., M.R.C.S., D.Sc, LL.D., F.R.S., C.M.Z.S., Professor of
Natural History, Armstrong College, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and Consulting
Physician to the Sunderland Infirmary, was born, he told me, April 18th,
1832. Presumably also on his authority we learn that the event occurred
at Gateshead, and that he was the eldest son of Henry Brady, surgeon.

As his childish education began at the Friends’ School, Ackworth, it is not
improbable that he owed the name Stewardson to his parents’ acquaintance
with the Quaker family which gave the popular portrait-painter of that name
to the early part of the nineteenth century. Certainly the whole tenor of
Brady’s life seems to have been in tune with the principles of that peace-
loving community, and even on the scientific side there are many indications
that friendship was his delight. It has been already explained in ‘ Nature’
(January 5th, 1922), among other details, that he became a member of the
Tyneside Naturalists’ Field Club in 1849. At that early period it is said that
his interest was “with alge and other plant groups.” Much later on he
referred to these studies when pointing out in correspondence (November,
1902), that the organisms which I had described as gland-cells in the amphipod
genus Urothe, were, in fact, “ parasites, probably alge.”

With the Natural History Society of Northumberland, Durham, and
Newcastle-upon-Tyne, of which the Tyneside Field Club was a branch, Brady
had a long and distinguished connexion, both as a frequent contributor to its
‘Transactions, and twice President of the Field Club. The respect felt for him
by fellow-workers in systematic zoology may be partially traced by the use of
his name in classification. Thus among Copepoda Axel, Boeck names a genus
Bradya in 1872, Thomas Scott supplies Neobradya in 1892, Giesbrecht
Bradypontius in 1895, and Bradyidius in 1897, Vanhoffen Bradyanus in the
same year, and G. O. Sars Pseudobradya in 1904. Sars had named a genus
Bradycinetuvs in 1865. But this suggests a curious need for caution in that
many generic names owe the commencing syllables Brady-, not to eminent
zoologists, but to the Greek @padv, indicating some organic slowness, and
very inappropriate to the scientific activities of George Brady and his
brother Henry. For the use of the former’s name in identifying species, his
friend A. M. Norman led the way with the Ostracode Cythere Bradvi in 1864.
But this, for technical reasons, gave way to another species, the Marquis de
Folin’s Cythere Bradiw in 1869. Norman, in 1878, named a Copepod
Cervima Brady, Sars in 1884 another of that group Undinopsis Bradyi, and
Thomas Scott a third in 1892 as Tetragoniceps Bradyi, but this, later on, he
found reason to place in a new genus with the long-flowing name of
Phyllopodopsyllus, strictly meaning “a leaf-footed flea,’ the species being
notable for “ the large size and leaf-like form of the fifth pair of thoracic feet
of the female.” Ina footnote to Tetragoniceps Bradyi, Dr. Thomas Scott

xXXI Obituary Notices of Fellows deceased.

remarks, “the name is given in compliment to Prof. G. S. Brady, who
instituted the genus, and to whose untiring and disinterested kindness the
author of these notes owes much of his success in the study of the Entomo-
straca.” In 1879 Dr. Norman again pays his friend the compliment of using
his name for a species, this time in the eccentric group of the Sympoda, to
which he adds the description of Diastylis Brady.

In the previous year the Ray Society had published the first volume of
Brady’s “ Monograph of the free and semi-parasitic Copepoda of the British
Islands.” As the uninitiated may be excused for wondering why men of
ability should spend a considerable part of their lives in studying creatures
so insignificant in size and so generally harmless to mankind, as the Ento-
mostraca, it may be observed that, as in old Camden’s phrase, “many a
little makes a mickle,” and as little grains of sand may make a mountain,
so the stupendous multitudes in which some of the entomostracan species
occur make them indirectly yet ultimately important contributors to human
food and comfort. But, apart from economic values, the true lover of nature
finds in this seemingly trivial study more than one source of esthetic
fascination. In the introduction to Brady’s last-mentioned work he says :—
“Some of the pleasantest and most profitable hours which I have ever
spent have been when, after a day’s dredging, I have set out at sunset on
a quiet boating excursion for the purpose of capturing such prey as could
be got in the surface net. Many hours of this kind, spent in the company
of my old friend Mr. David Robertson, amongst the Scilly Islands, on the
Firth of Clyde, on the sheltered bays of Roundstone and Westport, or on
the stormier coasts of Northumbria, will long live in my memory, not only
by their results in the acquisition of valuable specimens, but as times of
unalloyed delight in the contemplation of nature under a different guise from
that in which we usually see her.” The David Robertson to whom he here
alludes, otherwise known as “the Naturalist of Cumbrae” (see his ‘ Life by
his Friend,’ 1891), began a notable career as a penniless herdboy, and ended it
an Hon. LL.D. of Glasgow University.

In the bibliography to his luminous work on the Ostracoda of the Bay
of Naples and the adjacent seas (1894), G. W. Miiller enumerates twenty-
one contributions by Brady to this branch of Carcinology, together with
seven others in which his was the leading name in a collaboration. Five
of these were undertaken with David Robertson, one with Norman, and one
with Crosskey and Robertson together. When the first volume of the
“Challenger” Reports on Zoology was published in 1880 under the editorship
of Sir C. Wyville-Thomson, Brady was already a recognised authority on
the Ostracoda. He was among those specially consulted as to the disposal
of the vast “ Challenger ” material, and his was the third memoir to appear. It
was illustrated by forty-four quarto plates. For the comparative fewness of new
species he explains that the “work of the ‘ Challenger’ gave us no collections
whatever from between tide marks, nor from the laminarian zone, and these
two zones usually swarm with microzoic life of all kinds.” A later work of much

George Stewardson Brady. Xx

importance was that which he carried out in partnership with Canon Norman
on “The Marine and Freshwater Ostracoda of the North Atlantic and of
North-Western Europe,” the first part appearing in 1889, the second in 1896.
In this he gives a signal example of his scientific ingenuity which is worthy
of additional record. He points out (p. 622) that “In consequence of the
small size of Ostracoda it is extremely difficulty to procure spirit-preserved
specimens from the deep sea, and although the Myodocopa, being much larger
than the Podocopa, would be detected by the experienced eye of a Carcino-
logist who had studied them, yet the Zoologists usually attached to Govern-
ment Expeditions cannot be expected thus to notice them. Hence it is that
ina large number of cases the only examples which have come into our
hands are such as have been picked out of dried material. It struck us that,
notwitstanding their dried condition, it might yet be possible by maceration
to get some idea of the withered inmates of the shells. We therefore made
experiments, and succeeded in restoring the animals beyond our most ardent
expectations. All the portions of the animals figured [in several genera and
species mentioned] have been taken from dissections of animals which have
been preserved in a dried state for very many, in one case, as long as twenty-
three years, and we are satified that these drawings will be found to be
almost as exact, so far as they go, as those taken from spirit-preserved
examples.” :

In 1884, when the editing of the “ Challenger” Reports had passed into the
vigorous hands of John Murray, the eighth volume of Zoology appeared, having
as its opening treatise Brady’s Report on the Copepoda illustrated by fifty-five
carefully drawn plates. Though the collection thus laboriously discussed
presented many points of interest, Brady was forced to admit that it was far
from representative of what the ocean’s resources were likely to contain, and
that the last word had not been said as to methods of preserving these
organisms. In his Introduction he makes some remarks which bear on a

subject previously mentioned :—*“ The appearance of these minute creatures at

the surface depends upon conditions, the nature of which we scarcely at all
understand. Night, on the whole, seems to be more favourable than daytime,
but even during the day they sometimes appear in numbers so vast as to
colour the sea in wide bands for distances of many miles. This appearance
has been noticed, perhaps, most frequently in the tropics; but even in the
Arctic seas some species, especially Calanus (Cetochilus) finmarchicus, are at
times so abundant as to constitute, it is said, a most important item in the
food of the whale. So far, indeed, as number and size of individuals are
concerned, it would appear that the cold water of the Arctic and Antarctic
seas are even more favourable to the growth of Copepoda than the warmer
seas of the Tropics.”

With his frequent and arduous contributions to scientific literature Brady
combined, from 1857 till about 1890, the conscientious exercise of an exacting
profession, practising as a doctor in Sunderland, “and after that gave up his
time to his professorship at the Armstrong College, until he resigned in 1906

XX11l Obituary Notices of Fellows deceased.

and... . came to live in Sheffield.” Huis professorship he had held since
1875. . He married in 1859 and had one son and three daughters, losing his
wife ten years and his son one year before his own death. Two of his
daughters are married to members of his own profession, one to Dr. Charles
Atkin of Sheffield and another to Dr. R.S. Hubbersty of Sunderland, the third
remaining with her father to the close of his days. He died on Christmas
evening, 1921. Till the last year of what he himself described as his long
and happy life, he had never realised that he was old. Apart from science,
his amusements had all been of a tranquil kind—gardening, photography, and
the game of bowls. A friend, who had been reading over many of his
writings, tells his daughter that: “ Dominating all is the intense love he had
for nature, religion, and poetry.” Another friend, who often walked with him,
tells her of the enjoyment derived from the humour, instruction, and high
tone of his conversation. A long correspondence is in harmony with these
touches of character.

A letter from Sheffield, dated June, 1915, shows him at eighty-three, away
from necessary books, reluctant to undertake fresh work of importance, yet
unable to be disobliging. He explains that he had declined an invitation to
describe the Ostracoda and Copepoda collected by the Australasian Antarctic
Expedition, 1911-1914, under Sir Douglas Mawson, but that the material had
nevertheless been sent him, with further pressure. Now, the Scientific
Records of that Expedition show that in Series C the fifth volume contains
monographs on the Copepoda, the Cladocera, and Halocypride, by G.S. Brady.

A fine finish!
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