Joseph Whitaker (ornithologist)

Whitaker in 1880.

Joseph Isaac Spadafora Whitaker (Palermo, 19 March 1850 – Rome, 3 November 1936) was a Sicilan-English ornithologist, archaeologist and sportsman. He is mainly known for his work on the birds of Tunisia, and for being involved in the foundation of the Sicilian football club U.S. Città di Palermo.

Biography

Whitaker's family came from prominent Yorkshire origins.[1] The Whitaker family [2] were wealthy 19th-century tycoons from West Yorkshire, who had developed the fortified wine industry in Marsala, Sicily. During 1806, many members of the Whitaker family had moved to Sicily permanently.

Inheritance of the Vineyard Empire

He inherited vast vineyards and his great grandfather Ingham's banking empire. Choosing Palermo over the more provincial Marsala, he built the Villa Malfitano, an Italian Art Nouveau mansion near Zisa Castle on the Via Dante after his marriage to Tina Scalia. Tina was the daughter of General Alfonso Scalia who landed in Sicily with Giuseppe Garibaldi during the years leading up to the Risorgimento. They had two daughters; the elder of which married General Antonio Di Giorgio an Italian Minister of War. Thus the family was firmly established in the upper echelons of Italian Society.

In these years, the Belle Époque age, the house was the venue for lavish parties attended by British and Italian royalty. Tina Whitaker knew Richard Wagner, Benito Mussolini, the Kaiser and Edward VII, Empress Eugenie and Queen Mary. Attracted by homosexual company, she unwittingly found herself in a circle involved in the Irish Crown Jewels scandal.

Whitaker himself was founder and president of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals at Palermo. Also he was a prime factor in the foundation of U.S. Città di Palermo in the later 1880s, a football team who he was the first president of.

Birds

In 1891 already a very keen ornithologist Whitaker joined the British Ornithologists' Union. Collecting expeditions to Tunisia followed. These extended over a period of ten years (1894–1904). Notebooks kept at the time contain information on the natural history of the birds as well as other fauna and also the flora of Tunisia.

The Tunisian bird and bird nest and egg collection was housed in a villa in the grounds of his home “Malfitano” alongside a very complete collection of Sicilian birds and collections made on his behalf by Edward Dobson in Morocco. To these were added specimens of birds from the Mediterranean littoral.

Some of Whitaker's collection of Tunisian birds are in the Natural History Museum, London. The Sicilian birds are divided between the Royal Scottish Museum (bird skins) and the Ulster Museum (bird mounts, eggs and nests).

Archaeology

Whitaker devoted the last years of his life to archaeology, purchasing the island of Motya near Trapani the site of a Phoenician town founded in the eighth century BC. He wrote a book on his excavations in 1921. The site may be explored (online) using the Motya link.

Works

References

  1. ↑ Whitaker Family
  2. ↑ CouchGenWeb - Whitaker
  3. ↑ Je m'appelle Byblos, Jean-Pierre Thiollet, H & D, 2005, p. 208.
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