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Portrait of Edwyn C. Reed
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Naturalist Edwyn Charles Reed (1841-1910) was originally from Bristol, England. His childhood interest in the world around him launched his career as a naturalist; his first post was as a secretary and naturalist for the Bristol Museum before embarking on an expedition to Brazil. Returning to England (1869) illness from his trip, Reed was advised to move to a dry climate whereafter he donated his Brazilian materials to the Bristol museum and emigrated to Chile. Reed held his first position in Chile, as the naturalist for the Museo Nacional, for seven years. In 1873, a commission sent him back to Europe to study the collections in London and Paris. He moved to Valparaíso, in 1876, and was appointed curator of the Museo de Historia Natural de Valparaíso, working with founder Eduardo De la Barra to gather a collection for the brand-new museum. Due to poor health, he resigned after one year. For the next seven years, he was a professor of natural history and physical geography at the local naval academy. During that time Reed founded an observatory in Valparaíso and a museum at the San Rafael Arcángel del Valparaíso seminary. Again, because of health reasons he resigned and moved to the mountain towns of Los Andes and Baños de Cauquenes, where he founded a regional natural history museum (1895). In 1902, he was appointed the director of the newly-founded Museo de Concepción, a post which he held until his death in 1910. He was a member of the prestigious Société Scientifique du Chili. As well as publishing in the society's journal and in the press in Santiago, Valparaíso and Concepción, Reed published in the Anales de la Universidad de Chile, Actes de la Société Scientifique du Chili, Boletín de la Sociedad Nacional de Agricultura and the Revista Chilean de Historia Natural. Reed was best known for his work on insects, one collection of which ended up in the Washington, D.C. Natural History Museum, and Chilean birds. Reed had two sons: Edwyn Pastor Reed Rosa (1880-1966), a well-known doctor who worked in Chiloé, Valparaíso, Viña del Mar, and for the Chilean army and Carlos Samuel Reed Rosa (1888-1949) who followed after his father to study insects and birds, leading him to work as a teacher at various schools, as section head at the Museo de Etnología y Antropología de Chile and as director of Santiago's zoo.
Bibliography
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Dirección de Bibliotecas, Archivos y Museos. 1983. Museo Nacional de Historia Natural. Santiago: Dirección de Bibliotecas, Archivos y Museos, Ministerio de Educación Pública, Chile. Colección Chile y su cultura, serie Monumentos Nacionales.
- Etcheverry, Maria. 1993. 'Los naturalistas de la familia Reed en Chile: Edwyn Charles (1841-1910), Edwyn Pastor (1880-1966) y Carlos Samuel (1888-1949)', Boletín de la Sociedad Biologica de Concepción, Chile (64): 85-95.
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