Philip Savile Grey Reid

Abstract

Chapter 5 investigates how, back “home” in Britain, British military officers’ production of ornithological knowledge in the British Mediterranean helped reformulate notions of nation and “British birds.” It focuses on Captain Philip Savile Grey Reid (1845–1915), Royal Engineers, as a homeward-bound officer to Aldershot, Hampshire, to understand how ideas and practices of ornithology circulated back to Britain. Designated as “home of the British Army,” Aldershot was an integral site in the transimperial network of military garrisons across the British Empire, connecting England to the Mediterranean, India, British North America, South Africa, and the West Indies. The home station became an important posting for the reunion of family, friendship, military, and ornithological networks in England; its location in Hampshire allowed imperial military officers to ramble in the English countryside, fostering temperate cultures of nature through proper conduct in the collecting and documenting of British birds. Central to this chapter is an understanding of transimperial processes in the shaping of British military culture and the designation of national birds.