Colin Wyatt

Colin Wyatt
Born	(1909 -02-08)8 February 1909 London, England
Died	18 November 1975(1975-11-18) (aged 66) Guatemala, Central America
Occupation(s)	Ski-racer, ski-jumper, ski-mountaineer, artist, lepidopterist, author and photographer
Known for	British ski-racer and ski jumping record holder (1928,1929,1931) Ski-mountaineering achievements in New Zealand, Lapland and North Africa Lepidopterist who rediscovered rare Parnassius autocrator butterfly in Afghanistan Theft of butterflies from Australian museums

Colin Wyatt (8 February 1909 – 18 November 1975) was a British ski-racer, ski-jumper and ski mountaineer; artist; lepidopterist; author and photographer.

As an entomologist and field collector, with a private collection of more than 90,000 specimens, Wyatt specialised in butterflies of the northern hemisphere.

Born in Marylebone, London, he was christened Colin William fforde Wyatt but went by the name Colin Wyatt. He attended Le Rosey school, Switzerland and a crammer's before going to Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge.^[1] He studied art in Paris and London. After university, he pursued a career as an artist, in combination with competing in winter ski sports and ski mountaineering. He travelled extensively throughout his life.

Wyatt achieved national and international recognition as a ski jumper and cross-country skier, and also as a ski-racer in the newly-developing categories of slalom and downhill. He was invited, as a winter sports expert, to New Zealand to advise on the development of ski sports and tourism.

He had successful solo exhibitions as an artist but ceased painting after World War II and turned to making a living from writing, photography, and documentary films related to his travels.

Wyatt created a very large private collection of mainly Holarctic butterflies. As a field collector, he discovered a remote mountain species believed to be extinct; but he also achieved lasting notoriety for the theft of butterflies from two Australian museums for inclusion in his collection.

In 1975, while returning from a little-known and unexcavated pre-Columbian site in Guatemala, Wyatt died in an airplane crash in the mountains.^[2]

Early life

Colin Wyatt was the son of James William Wyatt, a civil engineer, mountaineer,^[3] lepidopterist and botanist, of Bryn Gwynant, Beddgelert, North Wales (of the Wyatt line of architects and land agents,^[4]) and Margaret Ellen Nicol, of Ardmarnock, Tighnabruaich, Argyllshire, Scotland (only daughter of Donald Ninian Nicol, MP).^[5] At the age of 10, he contracted bronchial pneumonia and his mother took him to the Swiss Alps where he recovered. He was an only child and was introduced by his father to botany and entomology when a very young boy, as well as to ski-ing and climbing.

Ski-ing and ski-jumping

During the 1920s and early 1930s, Wyatt won numerous cups and medals in downhill, jumping, slalom and cross-country ski-ing. Newspaper sports results covered the Oxford and Cambridge races, Inter Varsity Winter Sports Games,^[6] European Ski Championships, Anglo-Swiss Universities' races, International University Winter Games,^[7] and Federation Internationale de Ski (FIS) championships.^[8]

Arnold Lunn, founder in 1908 of the Alpine Ski Club, wrote in 1929 of the British taking part in long distance, jumping, slalom and downhill, and said: "The best all-round performance was that of Colin Wyatt, who distinguished himself in all four events."^[9]

He captained the Cambridge Ski and Ski Jumping Clubs^[10] and represented GB as a ski jumper on numerous occasions in Europe. In 1933, Wyatt was the first English competitor to take part in the Holmenkollen ski-jumping contest, in Norway.^[11] He took part in the first international slalom and downhill contest to be held in Norway, coming 1^st in slalom, and 5^th in downhill.^[12]

He achieved an entry in the Guinness Book of Records with the most wins in the British Ski Jumping Championships (discontinued in 1936) with three: in 1931, 1934 and 1936.^[13] He broke the British ski-jumping record three times in competitions (winters of 1928,^[14] 1929,^[15] 1931^[16]), setting the official British record of 57.5m (187ft) in 1931. This achievement remained in the Guinness Book of Records for decades. Tim Ashburner, in his book "The History of Ski Jumping," writes of ski jumping producing "characters rich and rare" and of Wyatt, along with Guy Nixon and Percy Legard, becoming Britain's first 50-metre ski jumpers in the early 1930s.^[17]

In the In Memoriam section in Ski Survey, published by the Ski Club of Great Britain, fellow Cambridge ski team member James Riddell wrote of him as "someone utterly unorthodox, bohemian, versatile, controversial, unpredictable".^[18]

In 1936 Wyatt was invited, as council delegate of Ski Club of Great Britain, by the New Zealand government and the Federated Council of New Zealand Alpine Clubs to to visit all the ski-ing centres and advise on ski-ing development and competitions and the development of winter resorts.^[19]

Climbing, ski-mountaineering and travelling

Colin Wyatt's achievements in ski-mountaineering included “firsts” in New Zealand, Lapland and Morocco. He submitted a list of mountaineering travels from 1930 to 1950 to the Royal Geographical Society in support of his successful candidacy to become a Fellow. The list included: various summer and winter climbs in the Swiss and Austrian Alps, on foot, on ski, or both; Norway; Albania; Canada; Papua New Guinea; New Zealand; Lapland; Australia; and Morocco. His book "The Call of the Mountains" describes many of these and a reviewer wrote: "For Mr Wyatt set out to recapture 'the golden age' of climbing and ski-mountaineering such as was known to his father and to Whymper and Mummery, and sought out-of-the-way countries and mountains where very few people had been before."^[20]

Mountaineer John Harding, in his 2016 book "Distant Snows: A Mountaineer's Odyssey", refers to Wyatt as someone "who pioneered expeditions to unusual places from the Arctic to the Antipodes", and writes that "Wyatt's exceptional ski mountaineering achievements have all but been forgotten."^[21] He writes that "although the first stirrings of New Zealand ski-ing pre-date the First World War, its ski mountaineering history really begins in 1936 when the New Zealand government invited an Englishman, Colin Wyatt, to advise on winter sports development." In an article in the Alpine Journal in 1988 titled "Ski Mountaineering is Mountaineering", Harding wrote of the 1930s as an era of animosity between traditional British climbers and those embracing "the new-fangled sport of ski-ing and, by extension, ski mountaineering". He describes Wyatt as "the outstanding British ski mountaineer of the immediate pre- and post-war years". ^[22]

In 1936-1937 in New Zealand, Southern Alps, Wyatt made the first ascent Mt. Wilycek (10,001ft); the first double winter ski traverse of Main Divide, via Tasman, Franz Josef, Fox and Haest glaciers and the first winter ascent of Mt. Annan.^[23] In North Island, he made a winter traverse of all Ruapehu-Tongariro group of volcanoes, and winter traverse of Mt. Egmont.

In 1938 in Lapland, he made the complete winter crossing of Lapland on ski from Kebnekaise to North Cape, 350 miles.

In 2021, Darren Hamlin, photographer and film-maker, and a team were planning to make a film of a winter crossing of the Kebnekaise.^[24] During research, he came across Wyatt's November 1938 article "On Ski through Arctic Lapland to the North Cape" in The Alpine Journal^[25] and realised that their winter crossing would not be the first. Hamlin's 2022 film "The Arctic 12" paid tribute to Wyatt, and included some of Wyatt's photographs.

In 1949 Morocco, North Africa, he made the complete traverse of the Toubkal Range, High Atlas, in winter (13,000ft) with several first winter ascents^[26] and in 1950 he made the first crossing of Tiferdine and M’Goun (13,000ft) ranges, to the Sahara and E. High Atlas (and spent five months painting in Morocco). Little was known about the area at that time. In 1912 Morocco had become a protectorate of France and Moroccan nationalists fought for decades for independence which was not granted until 1955.^[27] A military permit was required to visit southern Morocco which was a "zone d'insecurité" and the only maps were prepared from aerial surveys.^[28]

Further travels included seven months travelling the Northwest Territories, Canada; and trips to Kashmir, Nepal, India, Himalayas, Afghanistan, Afghan Hindu-Kush, High Atlas Morocco, Kara-Dagh and Elburs in Azerbaijan, north-western Iran. Post 1966, he travelled regularly to Canada and the USA as well as Europe, and up to his death in Guatemala was making regular trips to study and photograph archaeological sites in Central and South America. He sent frequent reports to The Alpine Ski Club in London.

Artist

He attended the County Council Central School of Art and the Slade School of Art, London, and the Academic Decluse, Paris.^[29] He also attended the Grosvenor School of Art, with tutors Claude Flight and Iain McNab. ^[30] He made a few works of sculpture.^[31]

Between 1928 and 1941, his work was exhibited at the Paris Salon; The Alpine Club;^[32] “Grubb Group” exhibition at Quo Vadis Restaurant;^[33] Connell Galleries, 47 Old Bond Street, London;^[34] Grosvenor School of Modern Art at Storran Gallery;  Contemporary Art Society’s 3^rd annual exhibition, Sydney.^[35]

He exhibited linocuts, oils and watercolours, and also pen and ink sketches undertaken during World War II service with the Royal Australian Air Force in the South West Pacific.

One-man exhibitions

• 1932                       Alpine Club Gallery^[36]
• 1934                       Alpine Club Gallery, Connell Galleries, 47 Old Bond Street^[37]
• 1938                       Palser Galleries, London^[38]
• 1944                       MacQuarie Galleries, Australia^[39]
• 1947                       Walker's Galleries, Bond Street, London^[40]
• 1954                       Coste House, Calgary, Canada^[41]

Online exhibition

2018 Louise Kosman Art^[42]

Lepidopterist

As an entomologist and field collector, with a private collection of more than 90,000 specimens, Wyatt specialised in butterflies of the northern hemisphere, discovering new species and sub-species,^[43] studying complicated butterfly relationships, and writing numerous scientific papers and articles for entomological magazines worldwide in various languages.  After his death, the collection was acquired in its entirety by the State Museum of Natural History Karlsruhe, Germany.^[44]

His particular interests included Apollo and Erebia. In 1960, on an expedition to Afghanistan and the Koh-i-Baba mountains and the Hindu-Kush, Wyatt rediscovered one of the rarest Asiatic mountain butterflies, Parnassius autocrator.^[45] The results of his expeditions to this area and also to Kashmir, Nepal up to Mount Everest and Mount Annapurna, and also Sikkim, have been published in the journals of the Lepidopterists' Society.^[46]

His field collecting involved travelling far off the beaten track and using his ski mountaineering skills. For example, in 1950 he was crossing the m'Goun range of the High Atlas in Morocco as an alpinist, on skis. At 13,000ft he noticed a migration of Pieris daplidice (L.) passing over from the Sahara, from south to north, and other migratory species.^[47]

An article in the journal Bonner Zoologische Beiträge^[48] by Otakar Kudrna includes an annotated list of the butterflies named by Colin Wyatt.

In May 1947, in London (West Ham), he pleaded guilty to stealing 1,600 butterfly specimens from the Australian Museum, Sydney,^[49] and the South Australia Museum, Adelaide, and was fined. His legal defence referred to the break-up of his first marriage on his return from being in the RAAF in the South West Pacific during World War II, and, to quote The Sydney Morning Herald of 21 May, 1947, “not in full command of his faculties”. The court case was well-covered in newspapers at the time. Wyatt co-operated fully with police and most of the stolen specimens were recovered.^[50] An article in the journal Australian Entomologist^[51] by W. John Tennent, Chris J. Müller, Axel Hausmann and Simon Hinkley discusses these thefts and the changing and falsification of data labels on stolen butterfly specimens.

Writer, photographer and film-maker

Books

1952    The Call of The Mountains; published by Thames and Hudson, London, also MacMillan, Canada, and 1953 New York.

1955    Going Wild (subtitled: The Autobiography of a Bug-Hunter); published by Hollis and Carter, London; also published in Colombo, Ceylon and Spain.

1958    North of Sixty; published by Hodder and Stoughton, London.

Articles and photographs

He published articles, illustrated by his photographs, in English and in other languages, in magazines and journals in different countries. Country Life, in particular, published many of his travel articles between 1949 and 1976 (the latter a posthumous article^[52]). He also sold photographs to similar publications worldwide.^[53]

His articles on ski-ing, ski-mountaineering and climbing include:

1937 "Ski-Mountaineering in New Zealand". The Alpine Journal. XLIX (254): 87-101

1942 "The Western Face of the Main Range". Australian and New Zealand Ski Year Book: 16-19; also 27-30

1951 "The First Crossing of the m'Goun Massif (13,434ft) in the Moroccan High Atlas". The British Ski Year Book. XIV (32): 308-317

Wyatt made documentary films including Nepal: Hidden Kingdom of the Himalayas (1958)^[54] and Hindustan Holiday/India Holiday (1959)^[55], which were shown on TV in the USA and other countries. He lectured with these films throughout the USA and was a guest lecturer on specialist travel trips such as Swan Hellenic.^[56] He also made radio broadcasts relating to his travels, including BBC radio (UK).^[57]

Personal life

Wyatt married Mary Scott Barrett, of Kingswood, Surrey, in June 1939 and emigrated to Sydney, Australia with the aim of pursuing his art career and trying sheep farming. World War II was declared as the ship docked. Owing to his proficiency in languages, he first worked for the Department of Home Security before serving in the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) as a camouflage expert in New South Wales, Australia and the South West Pacific. The couple divorced in 1949.

After World War II, he returned to England for a short time before marrying Elsa Maria Herran, of Medellin, Colombia, in 1951 and emigrating to Banff, Alberta, Canada. They had one daughter.

Wyatt became a Buddhist through his friendship with Christmas Humphreys QC, who founded the London Buddhist Lodge, which later changed its name to The Buddhist Society. In November 1956, Wyatt, with the British Buddhist Society’s delegation, attended the Fourth Congress of the World Fellowship of Buddhists’ at Kathmandu, in the capacity of official photographer,^[58] and was the official delegate from the UK to the Buddha Jayanti Congress in Nepal. Humphreys, in his obituary of Wyatt in the Society's journal The Middle Way, commented on Wyatt's film of the tour being one of the Society's treasures and on Wyatt as "an enthusiastic ambassador" of the Society's work worldwide. He wrote: “Few men knew the world so widely and so well.”^[59]

Wyatt learned a range of languages and regional dialects, including fluent and colloquial French, German, Spanish, Swedish and Norwegian. He picked up sufficient knowledge of other languages, including Arabic, to get by during his extensive travels to many parts of the world. He yodelled Swiss-German and Tyrolean dialect songs, accompanying himself on the Swiss accordion, and gave vaudeville performances on BBC radio. He was invited to yodel and play the accordion before the then Prince of Wales, later Duke of Windsor, at Oxford and before the King and Queen of Norway when he visited that country in 1933.^[60]

As well as being a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society,^[61] he was a member over his lifetime of many ski and alpine clubs in Europe, Australia and New Zealand, including the Alpine Ski Club^[62] and Swiss Alpine Club.^[63]

References

1. F.J.P. (1929). "The Blues". The Caian. XXXVIII (1): 4–6.
2. "Crash of a Douglas C-47-DL near El Caoba: 15 killed". Bureau of Aircraft Accidents Archives. 22 October 2024.
3. Strutt, E.L. (May 1940). "In Memoriam: James William Wyatt 1857-1939". The Alpine Journal. LII (260): 117–119.
4. Robinson, John Martin (1979). The Wyatts, An Architectural Dynasty. United States: Oxford University Press. pp. 137–140. ISBN 0-19-817340-7.
5. "HANSARD 1803–2005 → People (N) Mr Donald Nicol". api.parliament.uk. Retrieved 18 October 2024.
6. "Inter-University Ski-Racing: Downhill Event Won by Cambridge". The Morning Post. 24 December 1929. p. 13.
7. "University Winter Games". Irish Times. 10 January 1930.
8. "F.I.S. Rennen in Oberhof". Sport. February 1931.
9. Lunn, Arnold (2 January 1929). "Unknown". The Field.
10. "Ski-ing: University Contest". The Times. 27 December 1929.
11. "Englands første deltager i Holmenkollrennet i Oslo". Aftenposten. 28 February 1933.
12. "En tysk - en engelsk og en norsk seier i Hannibalrennet. Wyat slalåmrennet". Fremtiden. 13 March 1933.
13. Guinness Book of Records (16th ed.). Guinness. 1969. p. 292.
14. "Morven Cup at St Moritz. Cambridge Captain Breaks British Record". Yorkshire Post. 28 December 1929.
15. "Cambridge Easy Winners: The 'Varsity Ski-ing Match". The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News. 4 January 1930.
16. Guinness Book of Records (4th ed.). United Kingdom: Guinness Superlatives Ltd. 1960.
17. Ashburner, Tim (2003). The History of Ski Jumping. Shrewsbury, UK: Quiller Press. pp. 67–72. ISBN 1-904057-15-2.
18. Riddell, James (August 1976). "In Memoriam: Colin William Fforde Wyatt (1909-1975)". Ski Survey. 2 (13): 32.
19. "Ski-ing in the Dominion, Visit of Expert from England". The Press (Christchurch, N.Z.). 20 July 1936.
20. "Books of the Day: Mountaineering; Sailing; and "Jane's"". The Illustrated London News. 3 January 1953.
21. Harding, John G R (2016). Distant Snows A Mountaineer's Odyssey. Sheffield: Baton Wicks Publications. p. 218. ISBN 9781898573784.
22. Harding, JGR (1998). "Ski Mountaineering is Mountaineering". The Alpine Journal. 103: 143.
23. "Snowfields of the Alps: Touring on Skis Advocated". The Press. LXXII (21908): 12. 8 October 1936.
24. "Darren Hamlin Photography". Darren Hamlin. 16 August 2023.
25. Wyatt, Colin (November 1938). "On Ski Through Arctic Lapland to the North Cape". The Alpine Journal. L (257): 248–256 – via The Alpine Club.
26. "Six Alpinistes a l'Assaut du Mont Toubkal". Le Maroc. 2 April 1949.
27. "6. French Morocco (1912-1956)". University of Central Arkansas: Government, Public Service, and International Studies. 16 September 2024. Retrieved 16 September 2024.
28. Wyatt, Colin (1951). "The First Crossing of the m'Goun Massif (13,434ft) in the Moroccan High Atlas". The British Ski Year Book. XIV (32): 308–317 – via The Ski Club of Great Britain and The Alpine Ski Club.
29. "Footloose Free-Lancer Exhibits Paintings Here". Calgary Herald. 24 November 1954.
30. "Sports". www.art-angels.co.uk. Retrieved 12 May 2023.
31. Salaman, Malcolm C (March 1935). "Colin Wyatt". The Studio: 159.
32. Our Art Critic (13 December 1930). "Alpine Paintings: Sublimity and Drama of Mountain Peaks". The Morning Post.
33. "Grubb Group". Yorkshire Post. 13 June 1933.
34. Our Art Critic (21 November 1934). "Art Exhibitions". Morning Post.
35. "Pictures that startled Sydney". Sunday Telegraph Pictorial. 21 September 1941. p. 2.
36. Tatlock, R.R. (22 November 1932). "Alpine Club Gallery: The Work of Colin Wyatt: Pictures & Drawings". The Daily Telegraph.
37. "Sculptor and Skier". The Glasgow Herald. 27 November 1934.
38. "Colin Wyatt and the "Bill" Brackens". The Bystander. 26 October 1938. p. 32.
39. The Macquarie Galleries, 19 Blight Street, Sydney; catalogue "An Exhibition of Sketches of New Guinea and The Trobriand Islands" by Colin Wyatt; March 1944
40. Walker's Galleries, 118 New Bond Street, London W1; invitation to "An Exhibition of Water-Colours and Drawings of New Guinea" by Colin Wyatt; December 1947
41. "World Travels Mirrored In Canvases: Footloose Free-lancer Exhibits Painting Here". Calgary Herald. 24 November 1954.
42. Kosman (2018). "Colin fforde Wyatt 1909-1975".
43. Wyatt, Colin (1961). "Additions to the Rhopalocera of Afghanistan with descriptions of new species and subspecies". Journal of the Lepidopterists' Society. 15 (1): 1–18.
44. "Collections". The State Museum of Natural History Karlsruhe. 16 August 2023.
45. Wyatt Colin, Omoto Kei-ichi (1963). "Auf der Jagd nach Parnassius autocrator Avin". Zeitschrift der Wiener Entomologischen Gesellschaft. 48: 163–170.
46. Leuschner, Ron (20 February 1976). "Colin Wyatt Killed in Plane Crash". The Lepidopterists' Society (USA) (1): 1.
47. Wyatt, Colin (1950). "Field Notes: Migration in the Atlas Mountains of Morocco". The Lepidopterists' News. IV (6–7): 72.
48. Kudrna, Otakar (1981). "An annotated list of the butterflies named by Colin W. Wyatt (Lepidoptera: Papilionoidea, Hesperioidea)". Bonner Zoologische Beiträge. 32: 221–236 – via Zoologisches Forschungsinstitut und Museum Alexander Koenig, Bonn.
49. Walker, Prue (1 February 2024). "Australian Museum timeline". The Australian Museum. Retrieved 29 January 2024.
50. "Butterfly theft: Colin Wyatt fined" (PDF). The Sydney Morning Herald. 22 May 1947. p. 1. Retrieved 7 February 2024.
51. Tennent, W. John; Müller, Chris J.; Hausmann, Axel; Hinkley, Simon (19 April 2024). "From München to Melbourne: Repatriation of a butterfly holotype stolen by the infamous Colin Wyatt almost 80 years ago". Australian Entomologist. 51 (1): 43–55.
52. Wyatt, Colin (19 February 1976). "Yellow Bears and White Ice: Animals of the Arctic". Country Life Wild Life Number. pp. 410–411.
53. Wyatt, Colin (1958). North of Sixty. Great Britain: Hodder & Stoughton. pp. book jacket.
54. "Film Lecture Brings Nepal Festival View". Waikiki Beach Press. 1–3 January 1960.
55. "Forum Arts Offers 'India Holiday' Film". The Graphic. 16 January 1959. p. 1. Retrieved 16 September 2024.
56. W.F. and R.K. Swan (Hellenic) Ltd brochure "India with Nepal, Sikkim and Sri Lanka Swans Art Treasures Tours" 1976 1977
57. "Radio Times 21 July 1969". BBC Programme Index (Radio 4 FM). 29 January 2024.
58. Humphreys, Christmas (February 1957). "Two International Conferences". The Middle Way. XXXI (4): 156–160.
59. Humphreys, Christmas (February 1976). "Colin Wyatt". The Middle Way. L (4): 193.
60. "Accordion music: English exponent of popular art". The Mercury. 14 April 1937. pp. unknown.
61. "Article clipped from Santa Barbara News-Press". Santa Barbara News-Press. 18 January 1959. p. 29. Retrieved 6 January 2025.
62. Wyatt, Colin (1955). "How the Eskimos Build an Igloo". The British Ski Year Book. XVI (36): 222–224.
63. Ashburner, Tim (2003). The History of Ski Jumping. Shewsbury, England: The Quiller Press. p. 71. ISBN 1-904057-15-2.