Old Photograph North Feus Street Upper Largo Scotland

Old photograph of cottages, houses and children on North Feus Street in Upper Largo by Lower Largo, East Neuk of Fife, Scotland. Dr William Julius, Joe, Eggeling was born, the son of a doctor, on 18 July 1909 in Upper Largo, Fife. He was a Scottish forester, botanist, and naturalist. Eggeling was a dominant figure in the Uganda Forest Department in the 1930s and 1940s, and played an important role in nature conservation in Scotland during the 1950s and 1960s. When seven years old and enrolled at Kirkton of Largo Parish School, he spent 18 bed ridden months with tuberculosis of the hip. Despite this initial set back he rose to a distinguished career. Following St Mary's Preparatory School in Melrose, where he was Vice Captain, Dux and Victor Ludorum, his schooling was completed at Giggleswick in Yorkshire, England. At Edinburgh University he obtained a BSc in Forestry, being awarded the Younger Medal in Practical Forestry, and three class medals for Indian and Colonial forestry, and forest mycology. In 1930 he attended the Colonial Service Postgraduate Course in Forestry at Oxford University. Despite his educational focus upon India, he instead joined the Uganda Forest Department in 1931, becoming Assistant Conservator. By 1939 Eggeling had collected some 3800 specimens for the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and the British Museum Natural History. In 1954 Eggeling retired from the Colonial Forest Service and returned to the United Kingdom. Eggeling helped to found the Scottish Wildlife Trust in 1964 and became Vice President. He was also a Member of Council of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and Chairman of its Scottish Advisory Committee, and President of the Scottish Ornithologist Club between 1966 and 1969. In 1939 he had married Jessie Elizabeth Tothill, died 1988, daughter of Dr John Douglas Tothill, born 1888, died 1969, Director of Agriculture in the Sudan, who had filled a similar post in Uganda. Jessie accompanied her husband on most of his trips in Africa, and thereafter in the UK, raising a family of two sons and three daughters. After 19 years in Anstruther, where his wife's parents had retired, he and his wife moved to Dunkeld in 1973. He died on 10 February 1994 in Perth, Perthshire.



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