Henry Baker Tristram

He was the son of the Rev. Henry Baker Tristram,{{alox2|title=Tristram, Henry Baker (2)}} born at Eglingham vicarage, near Alnwick, Northumberland. He studied at Durham School and Lincoln College, Oxford. In 1846 he was ordained a priest.

Tristram was secretary to the governor of Bermuda from 1847 to 1849. He explored the Sahara desert, and in 1858 visited Palestine, returning there in 1863 and 1872, and dividing his time between natural history observations and identifying localities mentioned in the Old and New Testaments. In 1873 he became canon of Durham Cathedral. In 1881 he travelled again to Palestine, the Lebanon, Mesopotamia, and Armenia. He also made a second voyage to Japan to visit his daughter, Katherine Alice Salvin Tristram,{{cite web|url=http://www.adam-matthew-publications.co.uk/collections_az/CMS-1-01/highlights.aspx|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080723123821/http://www.adam-matthew-publications.co.uk/collections_az/CMS-1-01/highlights.aspx|url-status=dead|archive-date=23 July 2008|title=CHURCH MISSIONARY SOCIETY ARCHIVE Section I: East Asia Missions Part 1: Japan, 1869-1949 (including Loochoo Naval Mission, 1843-1861)|date=23 July 2008}} in 1891.{{sfnp|Buckland|2004}} She was a missionary and headteacher in Osaka.{{Cite ODNB |title=Katherine Tristram in The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography |date=2004-09-23 |url=http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/63276 |pages=ref:odnb/63276 |editor-last=Matthew |editor-first=H. C. G. |access-date=2023-04-01 |place=Oxford |doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/63276 |editor2-last=Harrison |editor2-first=B.}} She was the first woman missionary with the Church Missionary Society to have a degree.Julia Katorobo, John Martin, Cathy Ross, 'Pioneering Women, Extraordinary Lives', Yes Magazine, 2004 In his journals taken during his travels in Palestine, he described Bedouins, Jews and Muslims in disparaging terms.{{Cite web |last=Donahaye |first=Jasmine |date=2023-12-18 |title=How a colonial trip to Palestine spurred modern ornithology – and left it with imperial baggage |url=http://theconversation.com/how-a-colonial-trip-to-palestine-spurred-modern-ornithology-and-left-it-with-imperial-baggage-219267 |access-date=2023-12-19 |website=The Conversation}}

In 1858, he read the simultaneously published papers by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace that were read in the Linnean Society, and published a paper in Ibis stating that given the "series of about 100 Larks of various species before me... I cannot help feeling convinced of the views set forth by Messrs Darwin and Wallace." He attempted to reconcile this early acceptance of evolution with creation.{{sfnp|Armstrong|2000|p=6}} Following the famous Oxford Debate between Thomas Henry Huxley and Samuel Wilberforce, Tristram, after early acceptance of the theory, rejected Darwinism.Hesketh,I. 2009 "Of Apes and Ancestors – Evolution, Christianity and the Oxford Debate", University of Toronto Press, 85-86.

Tristram was a founder and original member of the British Ornithologists' Union, and appointed a fellow of the Royal Society in 1868. Edward Bartlett, an English ornithologist and son of Abraham Dee Bartlett, accompanied Tristram to Palestine in 1863–1864. During his travels he accumulated an extensive collection of bird skins, which he sold to the World Museum Liverpool.{{cite web|url=https://archive.org/details/ibis29brit|title=Ibis|last=British Ornithologists' Union|date=13 November 2018|publisher=[London] Published for the British Ornithologists' Union by Academic Press|via=Internet Archive}}

Tristram's publications included

• [https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/005725851 The Great Sahara] (1860)
• {{cite book

| last = Tristram | first = H.B. | author-link = Henry Baker Tristram | author-mask = 0

| date = 1865

| title = The Land of Israel; a Journal of Travels in Palestine, Undertaken with Special Reference to Its Physical Character

| location = London

| publisher = Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge

| url = https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_Qd8TAAAAIAAJ/

}}

• The Natural History of the Bible (1867); [https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001937850 10th edition (1911)]
• Scenes in the East (1870)
• The Daughters of Syria (1872)
• {{cite book

| last = Tristram | first = H.B. | author-link = Henry Baker Tristram | author-mask = 0

| date = 1865

| title = The Land of Moab; travels and discoveries on the east side of the Dead Sea and the Jordan

| location = New York

| publisher = Harper & Brothers

| url = http://www.hti.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=moa;idno=AHZ1745

}}

• Pathways of Palestine (1882)
• The Fauna and Flora of Palestine (1884)
• [https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001669427 The Survey of Western Palestine: The Fauna and Flora of Palestine] (1884)
• Eastern Customs in Bible Lands (1894) and Rambles in Japan (1895)

A number of birds were named after him, including Tristram's starling (also called Tristram's grackle), Tristram's bunting, Tristram's warbler, Tristram's woodpecker, Tristram's serin, and Tristram's storm-petrel. He also lent his name to the gerbil Meriones tristrami{{cite journal|last1=Thomas|first1=O.|year=1892|title=Description of a new species of Meriones from Palestine|journal=Annals and Magazine of Natural History|series=6|volume=9|issue=50|pages=147–149|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7E0VAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA148|doi=10.1080/00222939208677293}} (also called Tristram's jird). He is also commemorated in the scientific name of a species of lizard, Acanthodactylus tristrami.Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. {{ISBN|978-1-4214-0135-5}}. ("Tristram", p. 268).

He married Eleanor Mary Bowlby in Cheltenham on 5 February 1850. Their eight children included missionary and headteacher Katherine Alice Salvin Tristram.{{sfnp|Buckland|2004}}

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• {{cite book | last = Armstrong | first = Patrick

| title=The English Parson-naturalist: A Companionship Between Science and Religion | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hB0hEc4CN3wC | year=2000 | publisher=Gracewing | isbn=978-0-85244-516-7}}

• {{Cite ODNB|doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/36560|title=Tristram, Henry Baker (1822–1906)

| last = Buckland | first = A.R. | year = 2004}}

{{botanist|Tristram}}

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Category:1822 births

Category:1906 deaths

Category:19th-century English Anglican priests

Category:Alumni of Lincoln College, Oxford

Category:English ornithologists

Category:English travel writers

Category:Fellows of the Royal Society

Category:Holy Land travellers

Category:Palestinologists

Category:Parson-naturalists

Category:People educated at Durham School

Category:People from Alnwick

Category:Theistic evolutionists

Category:Zoological collectors

Category:Natural history of Palestine (region)