A series of articles by John and Anne Bebbington – John is a local natural history photographer and Anne is a botanist and botanical illustrator.
Personal background
John studied Agriculture and insect behaviour at the University College of North Wales before joining the Field Studies Council (FSC) and working as a tutor in ecology at Rhyd-y-Creuau, the Draper’s Field Centre, in Betws-y-CoedAnne studied Botany, and was awarded her PhD at Royal Holloway College, University of London, before joining the Field Studies Council and working as a tutor in ecology at Rhyd-y-Creuau, the Draper’s Field Centre, in Betws-y-Coed.
Anne and John were married in 1976 and. moved to Surrey when John was promoted to director of studies at Juniper Hall Field Centre near Dorking.
At Juniper Hall both John and Anne led courses for all ages, ranging from nursery classes to third level Open University, and co-led natural history courses in France, Switzerland, Canada and South Australia.
John was invited onto the Associateship and Fellowship assessment panel of the Royal Photographic Society after gaining his RPS Fellowship in 1991 and served on the panel over a 20 year period. He is a past chairman of the RPS Nature Group.
Anne joined the tutor team of Science and Plants for Primary Schools (SAPS) and began to run workshops for primary teachers both at Juniper Hall and at schools in the area.
From 2004 – Huish Episcopi
John and Anne retired in 2004, moving to Huish Episcopi. Anne continued to work for the FSC in an advisory role and continued to work for SAPS. John became involved with SAPS in 2006, providing images for their Plant Science Image Database and both were co-authors for a SAPS interactive project for primary school pupils, ‘A Gift to the School’. They soon began to give talks to local gardening societies, Somerset Wildlife Trust local groups and photography clubs. John also led residential photography courses and Anne ran botanical workshops for Kew Gardens and the South-west Society of Botanical Artists (SWSBA). She is past president of the Institute for Analytical Plant Illustration (IAPI) and has led botanical workshops for the Sheffield and Eden Project Florilegium groups. In 2017 she was appointed as botanical tutor for the Society of Botanical Artists’ Long Distance Learning Diploma, a position she held until retiring in 2022.
The COVID pandemic led to the cancellation of all their lecturing and teaching commitments, and they decided to stop giving talks and leading workshops face-to-face at that point. Anne has however led workshops for SWSBA and IAPI and John has given photography talks via zoom.
Publications (details at the end of this section)
While at Juniper Hall Anne and John wrote a series of fold-out identification charts, starting with two for junior groups. These were designed to make it easy for Key Stage 2 pupils to identify leaf-litter animals (‘The Woodland Name Trail’) and freshwater invertebrates (The Freshwater Name Trail). These were an immediate success – within 2 years the Freshwater Name Trail had been translated into 30 languages and was being used by first year university groups! These were followed by three more charts – ‘Bugs on Bushes’. ‘Exploring Colour in the Environment’ (which was stimulated by questions asked by primary school pupils) and ‘Gardening for Primary Schools’, a joint FSC/SAPS publication.
The success of these publications led to a series of identification charts for adults including Anne’s ‘A Guide to Common Water Plants’, ‘Grassland Plants 2’, ‘Describing Flowers’ and John’s ‘Butterflies of Britain and Ireland’ ‘Caterpillars of Butterflies of Britain and Ireland’ and ‘Hawkmoths’ all three of which were illustrated by Richard Lewington.
Pressure from students on workshops led to the production of two books – John’s ‘Insect Photography – Art and Techniques’; and Anne’s ‘Understanding the Flowering Plants’ (which is now a set text for the SBA diploma).
They are currently working on a project exploring the relationships between flower structure and insect behaviour.
Publications
Fold-out charts are available from Field Studies Council Publications:
https://www.field-studies-council.org/product-category/publications/
and from many garden centres, wildlife centres and National Trust properties.
Insect Photography – Art and Techniques is out of print but available second-hand or as a Kindle book on Amazon:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Insect-Photography-Techniques-John-Bebbington/dp/1847973787
or as an e-book from the publishers, Crowood Press:
https://www.crowood.com/collections/photography/products/insect-photography-by-john-bebbington
Understanding the Flowering Plants is available on Amazon as a Kindle book:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Understanding-Flowering-Plants-Practical-Illustrators-ebook/dp/B00JIE7ZFM/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1690538261&sr=1-1
or from the publishers, Crowood Press:
https://www.crowood.com/products/understanding-the-flowering-plants-by-anne-bebbington
