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Theresa Clay
Theresa Rachel "Tess" Clay (7 February 1911 – 17 March 1995) was an English entomologist. She was introduced to zoology by her older relative, the ornithologist and adventurer Richard Meinertzhagen, with whom she had an unusually close relationship. She became the world's expert on Mallophaga, or chewing lice; however, her work is cast into question by her suspected role in Meinertzhagen's many scientific frauds.
During and immediately after World War II, she worked with Victor Rothschild at MI5.
Clay was born on 7 February 1911, to Sir George Felix Neville Clay, 5th Baronet, one of the Clay Baronets, and Rachel Hobhouse Clay. Clay had four siblings, older sisters Margaret and Janet, older brother Henry, and younger brother Anthony. Clay's family lived at No. 18 Kensington Park Gardens, Notting Hill, London, and she attended at St Paul's Girls' School.
When Clay was eleven years old, her first cousin once-removed, or "uncle", Richard Meinertzhagen, came to live in the house beside her family's, No. 17 Kensington Park Gardens. Meinertzhagen was a prominent ornithologist and a genuinely distinguished soldier, but he was also a "colossal fraud", who stole bird specimens and described spurious species from them, and invented and embellished military exploits. He kept typed loose-leaf diaries, a system which allowed him to rewrite his diaries and pass off his retrospective diary entries as authentic. Later he was to write in his diaries, contradictorily, that he didn't notice Clay and her sisters until they were older; that he felt a mystical bond with her when he first saw her; and that he dreamt of her when she was born.
What is certain is that Meinertzhagen and Clay were close by the time she was fifteen. Meinertzhagen started to have a cold relationship with his wife Annie, spending time with Clay and her sisters instead. The probably genuine parts of his diaries are filled with gushing praise for Clay, and include photographs, some nude, of the Clay sisters. On 6 July 1928, Meinertzhagen's wife Annie died in questionable circumstances, from what was ruled to be an accidental gunshot wound. After Annie's death, Theresa Clay and her sister Janet cared for Meinertzhagen and his children. Theresa was baptised at St Martin-in-the-Fields church not long after Annie's death, with Meinertzhagen as her sponsor.
From around 1930, Meinertzhagen and Clay were rarely separate, living, working and travelling together. Clay was Meinertzhagen's "housekeeper, nanny, secretary, and scientific partner". It is unknown if Meinertzhagen and Clay's relationship was "physical": Meinertzhagen's friend Victor Rothschild asked Meinertzhagen this outright, but was told "in no uncertain terms to shut up"; and a 1951 article in TIME referred to their relationship with "wink-wink, nudge-nudge innuendo".
Clay continued to live in No. 18 Kensington Park Gardens, but it was connected to No. 17 by an underground passage. Clay's mother disapproved of her relationship with Meinertzhagen, but the "general social acceptance" of Meinertzhagen's eccentricities prevailed, and Clay's mother simply avoided speaking with Meinertzhagen, speaking through others even in his presence.
Meinertzhagen named a number of bird species after Theresa, one of which, the Afghan snowfinch or Theresa's snowfinch (Montifringilla theresae), is authentic.
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Theresa Clay
Theresa Rachel "Tess" Clay (7 February 1911 – 17 March 1995) was an English entomologist. She was introduced to zoology by her older relative, the ornithologist and adventurer Richard Meinertzhagen, with whom she had an unusually close relationship. She became the world's expert on Mallophaga, or chewing lice; however, her work is cast into question by her suspected role in Meinertzhagen's many scientific frauds.
During and immediately after World War II, she worked with Victor Rothschild at MI5.
Clay was born on 7 February 1911, to Sir George Felix Neville Clay, 5th Baronet, one of the Clay Baronets, and Rachel Hobhouse Clay. Clay had four siblings, older sisters Margaret and Janet, older brother Henry, and younger brother Anthony. Clay's family lived at No. 18 Kensington Park Gardens, Notting Hill, London, and she attended at St Paul's Girls' School.
When Clay was eleven years old, her first cousin once-removed, or "uncle", Richard Meinertzhagen, came to live in the house beside her family's, No. 17 Kensington Park Gardens. Meinertzhagen was a prominent ornithologist and a genuinely distinguished soldier, but he was also a "colossal fraud", who stole bird specimens and described spurious species from them, and invented and embellished military exploits. He kept typed loose-leaf diaries, a system which allowed him to rewrite his diaries and pass off his retrospective diary entries as authentic. Later he was to write in his diaries, contradictorily, that he didn't notice Clay and her sisters until they were older; that he felt a mystical bond with her when he first saw her; and that he dreamt of her when she was born.
What is certain is that Meinertzhagen and Clay were close by the time she was fifteen. Meinertzhagen started to have a cold relationship with his wife Annie, spending time with Clay and her sisters instead. The probably genuine parts of his diaries are filled with gushing praise for Clay, and include photographs, some nude, of the Clay sisters. On 6 July 1928, Meinertzhagen's wife Annie died in questionable circumstances, from what was ruled to be an accidental gunshot wound. After Annie's death, Theresa Clay and her sister Janet cared for Meinertzhagen and his children. Theresa was baptised at St Martin-in-the-Fields church not long after Annie's death, with Meinertzhagen as her sponsor.
From around 1930, Meinertzhagen and Clay were rarely separate, living, working and travelling together. Clay was Meinertzhagen's "housekeeper, nanny, secretary, and scientific partner". It is unknown if Meinertzhagen and Clay's relationship was "physical": Meinertzhagen's friend Victor Rothschild asked Meinertzhagen this outright, but was told "in no uncertain terms to shut up"; and a 1951 article in TIME referred to their relationship with "wink-wink, nudge-nudge innuendo".
Clay continued to live in No. 18 Kensington Park Gardens, but it was connected to No. 17 by an underground passage. Clay's mother disapproved of her relationship with Meinertzhagen, but the "general social acceptance" of Meinertzhagen's eccentricities prevailed, and Clay's mother simply avoided speaking with Meinertzhagen, speaking through others even in his presence.
Meinertzhagen named a number of bird species after Theresa, one of which, the Afghan snowfinch or Theresa's snowfinch (Montifringilla theresae), is authentic.