Henry Baker Tristram

Who was Henry Baker Tristram?

The Reverend Henry Baker Tristram FRS was an English clergyman, Biblical scholar, traveller and ornithologist. As a parson-naturalist he was an early acceptor of Darwinism, attempting to reconcile evolution and creation.

Tristram was born at Eglingham vicarage, near Alnwick, Northumberland, and studied at Durham School and Lincoln College, Oxford. In 1846 he was ordained a priest, but he suffered from tuberculosis and was forced to live abroad for his health. He 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 voyage to Japan to visit his daughter, Katherine Alice Salvin Tristram, who was a missionary and teacher in Osaka, where the famous Church Missionary Society School for Girls was opened in 1879, and developed under her guidance between 1888 and 1925.