In many ways, Jonathan Couch was a prototype of the Victorian provincial naturalist, a trained physician whose eclectic, but intensely local interests ran from the life sciences to geology, folk beliefs, and local history. The only child of Richard Couch and Phillipa Minards, Couch was born on March 15, 1789, at Polperro, a fishing village on the Cornish coast. After receiving a sound classical education at the Dame School and later at Bodmin Grammar School, Couch began a medical apprenticeship under Dr. John Rice of East Looe in 1803, and from 1808 to 1810, he completed his medical studies at the united St. Guy's and St. Thomas' Hospital in London. Returning to Polperro to practice medicine, Couch seldom again left Cornwall.

Despite the burdens of a busy medical practice, Couch began exploring an array of topics of antiquarian and natural historical interest from almost the moment of his return home. Bracketed by a profoundly local perspective, his interests ran the gamut from history and archaeology to Cornish folk beliefs, dialect, and the local flora and fauna. He became best known for his work on the life-blood of Polperro, its fisheries. Training the local fishermen to make natural historical observations and to assist him in bringing in rare specimens, Couch dissected and illustrated hundreds of fish over more than three decades of research, taking meticulous care to depict the colors of the live fish as accurately as possible. In recognition of his contributions, he was made a fellow of the Linnaean Society.

Couch was a regular contributor to several journals, including the Imperial Magazine, the Transactions and Proceedings of the Linnaean Society, and the Annals and Magazine of Natural History. His major publications include A Cornish Fauna (Truro, 1838, 1841), a three-volume translation of Pliny's Natural History (London, 1847-1849) published by the Wernerian Club of London, and the posthumously published The History of Polperro (Truro, 1871). His most important publication was the exhaustive four-volume History of the Fishes of the British Islands (London, 1860-1865), a seminal work that contained over 250 colored plates.

Thrice married, Couch was followed in medicine by all three of his sons, and his eldest son, Richard Quiller Couch, became a noted naturalist in his own right. Couch died in Polperro in 1870 at the age of 81.

The remnants of a wide-ranging mind, the Couch Papers contain a sampling of correspondence, rough drafts of articles, and miscellaneous notes on a variety of topics of interest to Jonathan Couch, the Cornish naturalist and antiquarian. The bulk of the correspondence relates to Couch's translation of Pliny's Natural History, published by the Wernerian Club of London between 1847 and 1849. The notes are highly eclectic, but include some systematic descriptions of fishes, probably used in his A History of the Fishes of the British Islands and notes Cornish folk beliefs.

Of particular interest are Couch's "Notes connected with instinct and reason" (see also his "Habits of the diadem spider") and three manuscripts relating to evolutionism and human origins: "Enquiry into the circumstances...," "On the history and development of man," and "The Natural History of the Creation of the World, with its changes to the subsidence of the flood and Noah." Although somewhat fragmentary, his notes on dreams are a valuable complement to a similar manuscript held in the Linnaean Society of London.

Physical description

1 linear foot

1 linear foot

Provenance

Acquired from Winifred Myers, 1980 (accn. no. 1980-1310ms).

Preferred citation

Cite as: Jonathan Couch Papers, American Philosophical Society.

Processing information

Recatalogued by rsc, 2003.

Related material

The manuscript of Couch's Natural History of Cornish Fishes (1844) is held in the Kienbusch Angling Collection at Princeton University. Couch's notebook of medical lectures, 1808-1847, kept during and after his study at Guy's and St. Thomas' Hospital in London, is housed in the Special Collections Deparment, Duke University Library. Additional Couch manuscripts are located in the collections of the Linnaean Society of London.

Bibliography

Early American History Note

This manuscript collection falls outside the geographic scope of the Early American guide (British North America and the United States before 1840). It may be of interest to scholars interested in global history, international relations, imperialism, or the U.S. in the world.

• Wernerian Club (London, England)

• Pen works
• Photographs

• Cornwall -- Description and travel

• Couch, Jonathan, 1789-1870
• Cowper, B. Harris (Benjamin Harris)
• Darwin, Charles, 1809-1882
• Dunn, Matthias
• Exeter, Jonathan
• Fulcher, Thomas
• Greenough, George Bellas, 1778-1855
• Hardy, James
• Herschel, John F. W., Sir (John Frederick William), 1792-1871
• Hocken , Edward Octavius
• Moxon, Charles
• Munford, George, 1794-1871
• Peach, Charles William, 1800-1886
• Pliny the Younger
• Saunders, Robert
• Slater, J. W. (John William)
• Sole, Edward
• Watkins, Henry

• Astronomy -- Great Britain -- 18th century
• Beyond Early America
• Conchology -- Great Britain
• Creationism.
• Developmental biology -- Great Britain
• Dreams
• Evolution (Biology)
• Fisheries -- Great Britain
• Fishes -- Great Britain
• Human evolution
• Instinct
• Natural history -- Great Britain -- 19th century
• Superstition -- Great Britain
• Zoology -- Great Britain