Gulielma Mary Holmes (1828-1907) and Mary Holmes (b.1832), palaeontological illustrators for their father George Bax Holmes (1803-1887)

Another set of sisters who provided illustrations for their father, were Gulielma Mary Holmes (1828-1907) and Mary Holmes (b.1832).

Their father George Bax Holmes (1803-1887) was a wealthy fossil collector from Horsham, Sussex who began to acquire specimens in the early 1830s, possibly after being inspired by the activities of another Sussex palaeontologist Gideon Mantell (1790-1852), who had discovered the teeth and bones of the Iguandon and other extinct reptiles in Tilgate Forest near Cuckfield.

Holmes’ collection came to the attention of the comparative anatomist Richard Owen (1804-1892), whilst the latter was researching his ‘Report on British Fossil Reptiles’ (published 1840 & 1842). Commissioned and funded by the British Association, Owen travelled around the country visiting public and private collections to view the wide variety of reptile fossils which had been found in the preceding decades. His remit was to attempt to classify them based on their anatomical features. The most famous result was Owen’s definition of Dinosauria which remains in use to this day.

Specimens from Holmes’ collection were referenced in Owen’s reports to the British Association, and afterwards the two men remained in communication. Before the advent of detailed photography, the best way to distribute fossil finds (aside from sending the actual fossil itself) was to produce a drawing or a print. From 1846 Holmes sent Owen drawings from his collection made by his artistically talented daughters Gulielma and Mary not only for identification but in the hope they would be included in one of Owen’s publications. Holmes’ ambitions were realised when six lithographic plates, based on the drawings by Gulielma and Mary, were published in Richard Owen’s ‘Monograph on the fossil Reptilia of the Wealden and Purbeck formations’ (1853-1889). 

Whilst Owen referred to the drawings made by Gulielma as “accurate and beautiful”, John Whitaker Hulke (1830-1895) was a bit more critical. Hulke, like Owen, had a background as a surgeon and would turn his anatomical knowledge to the study of reptile osteology. On finding that the proximal end of a humerus of an Iguanodon in Holmes’ collection was “in great part, a restoration in Roman cement”, rather than blaming the person who commissioned the restoration, he wrote:

"To the great artistic talent of this lady, her very beautifully executed and truthful drawings of fossil bones which I have seen bear testimony. I shall, however, not do her any injustice if I suggest the absence of such critical anatomical knowledge as would have enabled her to distinguish the real from the fictile parts of the bone."

From: J W Hulke, “Description of some Iguanodon-remains indicating a new Species, I. Seelyi”, Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society, vol 38 (1882), pp135-144.