Eliza Catherine Jelly (28 September 1829 - 3 November 1914) was an English bryozoologist. She was one of the first women to work and publish in the field of bryozoology. Her 1889 text ''The Synonymic Catalogue of the Recent Marine Bryozoa'' is still used as a reference material.

Early life

Eliza Catherine Jelly was born in

Bath, Somerset Bath () is a city in the Bath and North East Somerset unitary area in the county of Somerset, England, known for and named after its Roman-built baths. At the 2021 Census, the population was 101,557. Bath is in the valley of the River Avon, ...

, the daughter of Harry Jelly, an

Anglican Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of th ...

clergyman, and Eliza Jelly (née Cave), who came from a family of builders in Bath. Her father Harry, orphaned as an infant, was a naturalist and had long been interested in

paleontology Paleontology (), also spelled palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present). It includes the study of fossi ...

, and frequently went searching for fossils, plants, and insects. He is recorded as having donated fossils from

Wiltshire Wiltshire (; abbreviated Wilts) is a historic and ceremonial county in South West England with an area of . It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset to the southwest, Somerset to the west, Hampshire to the southeast, Gloucestershire ...

to the Bath Literary and Philosophical Institute in 1826. He later took a fossil-collecting trip to Jamaica and donated these specimens to the

Geological Society of London The Geological Society of London, known commonly as the Geological Society, is a learned society based in the United Kingdom. It is the oldest national geological society in the world and the largest in Europe with more than 12,000 Fellows. Fe ...

in September 1839. The Jelly family lived in Bath and Bristol until Eliza was about 13 years old. The family later moved to Devon where Eliza resided until 1860 when her mother died. After her death, Jelly lived in the household of Colonel William Stewart at Eldon Villa in Bristol, as a governess and a 'lady's companion'. After Stewart died in 1865 and left Eliza £400, she moved to the

Wirral Peninsula Wirral (; ), known locally as The Wirral, is a peninsula in North West England. The roughly rectangular peninsula is about long and wide and is bounded by the River Dee to the west (forming the boundary with Wales), the River Mersey to t ...

in Cheshire.

Career

Jelly's first and only scientific publication, a list of both land and freshwater mollusks of Bristol, was published while she was living at Eldon Villa. It was published under the name E.C. Jellie, using a spelling of her surname her brother had adopted but which Eliza later reverted. Between 1870 and 1880, Jelly sent a series of letters to the botanist Edward Adolphus Holmes, five of which are preserved in the archives of the

Linnean Society of London The Linnean Society of London is a learned society dedicated to the study and dissemination of information concerning natural history, evolution, and taxonomy. It possesses several important biological specimen, manuscript and literature colle ...

. In 1870 she discussed the moss '' Dicranella fallax'' (Wilson, 1870) that she had found in "a deep sh ditch, down close to the water & hidden by grass". Robert Braithwaite, the bryologist, referred to her discovery of ''D. fallax'', as well as another moss from

Teignmouth Teignmouth ( ) is a seaside town, fishing port and civil parish in the English county of Devon. It is situated on the north bank of the estuary mouth of the River Teign, about 12 miles south of Exeter. The town had a population of 14,749 at the ...

, in his own works. In 1870, her letters mentioned '' Plumularia myriophyllum'', a species of

hydrozoans Hydrozoa (hydrozoans; ) are a taxonomic class of individually very small, predatory animals, some solitary and some colonial, most of which inhabit saline water. The colonies of the colonial species can be large, and in some cases the specialized ...

. Holmes had also sent her samples of an unidentified zoophytes, which she returned them to him, saying that she was unable to identify one of them as it did not belong to any of the families she was studying, suggesting her mastery with seaweeds, algae, lichen, and mosses. She never married. She and her long time friend, Edith Williams, with whom she lived for many years, were buried together in a double grave in the Chart Lane cemetery of

Reigate Reigate ( ) is a town status in the United Kingdom, town in Surrey, England, around south of central London. The settlement is recorded in Domesday Book in 1086 as ''Cherchefelle'' and first appears with its modern name in the 1190s. The earlie ...

in Surrey.

Legacy

A number of taxa have been named after Jelly, including '' Euthyroides jellyae'', the

Cretaceous The Cretaceous ( ) is a geological period that lasted from about 145 to 66 million years ago (Mya). It is the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era, as well as the longest. At around 79 million years, it is the longest geological period of th ...

species of

cyclostomata Cyclostomi, often referred to as Cyclostomata , is a group of vertebrates that comprises the living jawless fishes: the lampreys and hagfishes. Both groups have jawless mouths with horny epidermal structures that function as teeth called ceratod ...

'' Truncatula jellyae'', the

Jurassic The Jurassic ( ) is a Geological period, geologic period and System (stratigraphy), stratigraphic system that spanned from the end of the Triassic Period million years ago (Mya) to the beginning of the Cretaceous Period, approximately Mya. The J ...

species '' Multiclausa jellyae'', the Australian species '' Tervia jellyae'' named by

Sidney Frederic Harmer Sir Sidney Frederic Harmer, Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire, KBE, Fellow of the Royal Society, FRS (9 March 1862 – 22 October 1950) was a UK, British zoologist. He was President of the Linnean Society 1927–1931 and was awa ...

, the genus Jellyella, described in 1997, and the New Zealand species '' Exochella jellyae'' named by

David Alexander Brown David Alexander Brown (8 February 1916 – 3 November 2009) was a geologist who played an important role in developing the study of Geology in Australia. He was born on 8 February 1916 in Scotland. His father fought and died at Gallipoli in Wo ...

References

External links

''A Synonymic Catalogue of the Recent Marine Bryozoa, including Fossil Synonyms''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jelly, Eliza Catherine 1829 births 1914 deaths Bryozoology English women scientists