Durrell was born in Jamshedpur, British India, on 7 January 1925. His father, Lawrence Samuel Durrell, was a civil engineer; his mother was Louisa Florence Dixie. He had two older brothers, Lawrence and Leslie, and an older sister, Margaret. Another sister, Margery, had died in infancy.[1] His parents had both been born in India. His mother's family were Irish Protestants from Cork, and his father's father, who was from Suffolk, had come to India and married an Anglo-Irish woman, Dora Johnstone, whom Durrell knew as "Big Granny". Durrell's father insisted that Louisa conform with conventional expectations, but she was more independent than most women of the era. She spent much time with her cook, learning to make curries, and had trained as a nurse.[2] It was usual for Anglo-English parents to see little of their children, and the household included an ayah (a nursemaid) who helped raise the children, and a Catholic governess.[3]
When Durrell was fourteen months old, the family left Jamshedpur and sailed to Britain, where his father bought a house in Dulwich, near where both the older boys were at school. They returned to India in late 1926 or early 1927, settling in Lahore, where Lawrence had contract work.[4] It was in Lahore that Gerald's fascination with animals began, first when he saw two large slugs entwined in a ditch while out with his ayah one day, and later when he visited the zoo in Lahore. He was entranced by the zoo, later recalling "The zoo was in fact very tiny and the cages minuscule and probably never cleaned out, and certainly if I saw the zoo today I would be the first to have it closed down, but as a child it was a magic place. Having been there once, nothing could keep me away."[5] The Durrells also briefly owned a pair of Himalayan bear cubs, given to them by Louisa's brother John, a hunter. Louisa soon decided they were too dangerous, and gave them to the zoo.[6]
Durrell's father fell ill in early 1928, and died of a cerebral hemorrhage on 16 April. Louisa was devastated by his death, but Gerald was scarcely affected, having had little emotional connection to his father.[7] Louisa considered keeping the family in India, but eventually decided to move back to the UK, and they sailed back from Bombay.[8] The house in Dulwich that Lawrence had bought in 1926 was large and expensive to run, and in 1930 Louisa moved the family to a flat attached to the Queen's Hotel in Upper Norwood.[9] Louisa made friends with a Mrs. Brown who was also living in one of the hotel flats, and when Mrs. Brown moved to Bournemouth with her mother and daughter, Louisa followed, buying a large house in Parkstone in early 1931.[10] Louisa was lonely with just Gerald for company; the other three children were at school or studying elsewhere. She began to drink, and eventually had "what in those days was called a 'nervous breakdown'", in Gerald's words. A governess was brought in for a while. but after Louisa returned, temporarily freed of her drinking habit, Gerald was sent to a kindergarten nearby instead. He enjoyed his time there, particularly because one of the teachers encouraged his interest in natural history, bringing in an aquarium with goldfish and pond snails.[11]
In 1932 Louisa moved them again, to a smaller house in Bournemouth, and the following year she enrolled him at Wychwood School. Gerald loathed the school; as in kindergarten, the only lessons he enjoyed were in natural history. He would scream and struggle to avoid going. When he was nine he was caned by his headmaster, and his mother took him away from the school. She bought him a dog, which he named Roger, as compensation for his traumatic time there.[12] He never received any further formal education,[12] though he intermittently had tutors.[13]
Lawrence and his partner, Nancy,[note 1] moved in with Louisa and Gerald at about the end of 1934 when the friends they had been living with, George and Pam Wilkinson, emigrated to Corfu. George wrote to Lawrence about Corfu in glowing terms, and first Lawrence and then the rest of the family took up the idea of moving there.[note 2][15] Lawrence and Nancy left England on 2 March 1935, and the rest of the family followed five days later, sailing from Tilbury. They reached Naples later that month, and took a train across Italy to Brindisi, where they took a ferry to Corfu.[16]
Lawrence and Nancy moved in to a house in Perama, near the Wilkinsons, and the rest of the family stayed in the Pension Suisse in Corfu town for a few days, househunting. They met Spiro Chalikiopoulos, who found them a villa near Lawrence and Nancy, and became a close family friend.[17] Gerald fell in love with Corfu as soon as they moved out of the town, and spent his days exploring, with a butterfly net and empty matchboxes in which to bring home his finds.[18] Louisa soon decided he needed to continue his education, and hired George to tutor him in the mornings, but Gerald was a poor student.[19]
If I had the power of magic, I would confer two gifts on every child—the enchanted childhood I had on the island of Corfu, and to be guided and befriended by Theodore Stephanides.
George was friends with Theodore Stephanides, a polymathic Greek-British doctor and scientist, whom he introduced to Gerald.[21] Stephanides spent a half-day every week with Gerald, walking in the countryside with him, and talking to him about natural history, among many other topics. He was enormously influential on Gerald, and helped to encourage and systematize Gerald's love of the natural world.[22] Gerald collected animals of all kinds, keeping them in the villa in whatever containers he could find, sometimes causing an uproar in the family when they discovered water snakes in the bath or scorpions in matchboxes.[23] Stephanides's daughter, Alexia, who was a little younger than Gerald,[note 3] became his closest friend,[26][27] and the families of each hoped that the two would one day marry.[25][28]
In mid-1935 the family moved to a villa near Kondokali, not far north of Corfu town.[29] Gerald's education continued to be haphazard, with tutors who were unable to interest him.[note 4] Lawrence encouraged Gerald to read widely, giving him an eclectic selection of books, from the unexpurgated version of Lady Chatterley's Lover to Darwin. Among the books were several by naturalists, including Henri Fabre's Insect Life and The Life and Love of the Insects, which Gerald found entrancing;[31] naturalists such as Fabre, Darwin, Alfred Russel Wallace and Gilbert White became his heroes.[32] Equally influential was a copy of Wide World, an adventure magazine, which Leslie lent him: it contained an account of an animal-collecting expedition to the Cameroons led by Percy Sladen, and gave Gerald the ambition of someday doing the same.[31] Leslie and Lawrence each owned boats, and Gerald was given a small rowing boat as a birthday present. It was christened the Bootle-Bumtrinket, and Gerald added trips along the coast to his excursions through the countryside.[33]
Late in 1937 the family moved again, this time to a villa overlooking Halikiopoulou Lagoon.[34] Stephanides left the island for a job in Cyprus in early 1938, though his wife and daughter stayed in Corfu, and Margaret returned to England the following year. In mid-1939, with war looking increasingly likely, Louisa was warned by her London bank that if she did not return to England she would have no access to her funds if hostilities broke out. Louisa, Leslie, Gerald, and Maria Condos, the family's maid, left Corfu for England in June. Margaret briefly returned; Lawrence and Nancy waited to leave until after war was declared, and Margaret finally left after Christmas.[35][note 5]
Louisa established the family in a Kensington flat, and began looking for a house for them. While they were in London, Gerald took his first job, as an assistant at a pet shop near the flat, and impressed the owner with his knowledge of animals.[37] Louisa moved the family back to Bournemouth by early 1940, and there she made one more attempt to get Gerald an education. A visit to a local public school was not a success, so another tutor was hired. Harold Binns taught Gerald to appreciate poetry and gave him a love of words, and also showed him how to make use of his local public library.[38]
His call-up for the war came in 1943, but he was exempted from military duty on medical grounds, and asked to serve the war effort by working on a farm. After the war, Durrell joined Whipsnade Zoo as a junior or student keeper. This move fulfilled a lifelong dream: Durrell claims in The Stationary Ark that the first word that he could enunciate with any clarity was "zoo". Beasts in My Belfry recalls events of this period.
Durrell left Whipsnade Zoo in May 1946 to join wildlife collecting expeditions, but was denied a place in the voyages due to his lack of experience. His wildlife expeditions began with a 1947 trip to the British Cameroons (now part of Cameroon) with ornithologist John Yealland, financed by a £3,000 inheritance from his father on turning 21. The animals that he brought back were sold to London Zoo, Chester Zoo, Paignton Zoo, Bristol Zoo, and Belle Vue Zoological Gardens. He followed this expedition with two others, accompanied by fellow Whipsnade zookeeper Ken Smith: a repeat trip to the British Cameroon in 1949, and a trip to British Guiana (now Guyana) in 1950. On the first of these trips, he met the Fon of BafutAchirimbi II, a West African chieftain who helped him organise future missions.
Durrell housed and fed his captives with the best supplies obtainable, not trapping animals having merely "show value" or those which would fetch high prices from collectors. These practices differed from those of other animal-collecting expeditions and he was in financial straits by the end of his third expedition. He had a falling-out with George Cansdale, superintendent of the London Zoo, and Durrell was blackballed by the British zoo community and could not secure a job in most zoos. He eventually found one at the aquarium at Belle Vue Zoo in Manchester, where he remained for some time.
Durrell started writing humorous autobiographical accounts to raise money with encouragement and assistance from Jacquie[39] and advice from his brother Lawrence. He did this initially because he and Jacquie were in need of money after their wedding and he had no source of income, and later he wrote in order to fund his expeditions and conservation efforts. His first book The Overloaded Ark was a huge success, causing him to follow up with other such accounts. He only made £50 from British rights (Faber and Faber), but he obtained £500 from the United States rights (Viking Press) for the book, and thus managed to raise money for a fourth expedition to South America in 1954. This, however, was undertaken during a political coup d'état in Paraguay and was unsuccessful.
The publication of My Family and Other Animals in 1956 made Durrell a notable author and brought him public recognition as a naturalist. Royalties from this book, which made best-seller lists in the United Kingdom,[40] helped to fund Durrell's next expedition.
Durrell's growing disillusionment with the way zoos of the time were run, and his belief that they should primarily act as reserves and regenerators of endangered species,[41] made him contemplate founding his own zoo. His 1957 trip to Cameroon for the third and last time was primarily to collect animals which would form the core collection of his own zoo.
This expedition was also filmed, it being Durrell's first experiment with making a cinematographic record of his work with animals. The success of the film To Bafut with Beagles, together with his autobiographical radio programme Encounters with Animals, made Durrell a regular with the BBC Natural History unit[42][43] for decades to come, as well as generating funds for his conservation projects. He made the Jersey zoo in his backyard.
On his return from Bafut, Durrell and wife Jacquie stayed with his sister Margaret at her boarding house in the seaside resort of Bournemouth. His animals were housed in her gardens and garage on a temporary basis, while Durrell sought prospective sites for a zoo.[44] To his dismay, both Bournemouth and Poole municipalities turned down his suggestion for a zoo. This experience provided material for his book A Zoo in My Luggage.
Durrell founded the Jersey Zoological Park in 1959 to house his growing collection of animals. The site for the zoo, a 17th-century manor house, Les Augres Manor, came to Durrell's notice by chance after a long and unsuccessful search for a suitable site. Durrell leased the manor and set up his zoo on the redesigned manor grounds. In the same year, Durrell undertook another, more successful expedition to South America to collect endangered species. The zoo was opened to the public in 1959 on 26 March.
As the zoo grew in size, so did the number of projects undertaken to save threatened wildlife in other parts of the world. Durrell was instrumental in founding the Jersey Wildlife Preservation Trust (now Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust), on 6 July 1963 to cope with the increasingly difficult challenges of zoo, wildlife and habitat management.
The trust opened an international wing, the Wildlife Preservation Trust International, in the United States in 1971, to aid international conservation efforts in a better fashion. That year, the trust bought out Les Augres Manor from its owner, Major Hugh Fraser, giving the zoo a permanent home.
The 1970s saw Jersey Wildlife Preservation Trust become a leading zoo in the field of captive breeding, championing the cause among species like the lowland gorilla, and various Mauritian fauna. Durrell visited Mauritius several times and coordinated large scale conservation efforts in Mauritius with conservationist Carl Jones, involving captive breeding programmes for native birds and reptiles, ecological recovery of Round Island, training local staff, and setting up local conservation facilities. This ultimately led to the founding of the Mauritian Wildlife Foundation in 1984.
Jacquie Durrell separated from and then divorced Durrell in 1979, citing his increasing work pressure, associated alcoholism and mounting stress as causes.
Durrell met his second wife, Lee McGeorge Wilson, in 1977 when he lectured at Duke University, where she was studying for a PhD in animal communication. In 1978, a year after they first met, Durrell wrote a love letter to his future wife.[45][46] They married in 1979. She co-authored a number of books with him, including The Amateur Naturalist, and became the honorary director of the trust after his death.
In 1978, Durrell started the training centre for conservationists at the zoo, or the "mini-university" in his words. As of 2005, over a thousand biologists, naturalists, zoo veterinarians and zoo architects from 104 countries have attended the International Training Centre. Durrell was also instrumental in forming the Captive Breeding Specialist Group of the World Conservation Union in 1982.
Durrell founded Wildlife Preservation Trust Canada, now Wildlife Preservation Canada, in 1985. The official appeal, Saving Animals from Extinction, was launched in 1991 at a time when British zoos were not faring well and London Zoo was in danger of closing down.
In 1989, Durrell and his wife, along with David Attenborough and cricketerDavid Gower helped launch the World Land Trust (then the World Wide Land Conservation Trust). The initial goal of the trust was to purchase rainforest land in Belize as part of the Programme for Belize. Around this time Gerald Durrell developed a friendship with Charles Rycroft, who became an important donor of funds both for building works in Jersey (the Harcroft Lecture Theatre) and for conservation work in East Africa, Madagascar and elsewhere.
1990 saw the trust establish a conservation programme in Madagascar along the lines of the Mauritius programme. Durrell visited Madagascar in 1990 to start captive breeding of a number of endemic species like the aye-aye.
Durrell chose the dodo, the flightless bird of Mauritius that was hunted to extinction in the 17th century, as the logo for both the Jersey Zoo and the trust. The children's chapter of the trust is called the Dodo Club. Following his death, the Jersey Wildlife Preservation Trust was renamed the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust at the 40th anniversary of the zoo on 26 March 1999. The Wildlife Preservation Trust International also changed its name to Wildlife Trust in 2000, and adopted the logo of the black tamarin.
In A Zoo in My Luggage (1957), Durrell wrote:
To me the extirpation of an animal species is a criminal offence, just as the destruction of something else that we cannot recreate or replace, such as a Rembrandt or the Acropolis, would be.
On 26 February 1951, Durrell married Manchester resident Jacqueline ('Jacquie') Sonia Wolfenden after a lengthy courtship; they eloped when she was 21, because of opposition from her father. The couple initially lived in a small bedsitter in Durrell's sister Margaret's Bournemouth boarding house. Jacquie accompanied him on most of his following animal expeditions and helped found and manage the Jersey Zoo. She also authored two humorous, best-selling memoirs on the lines of Durrell's books in order to raise money for conservation efforts. They separated and then divorced in 1979, citing the pressure of his work and his alcoholism.
In 1979, Gerald married American Lee McGeorge Wilson, who met him when he gave a lecture at Duke University in North Carolina in 1977, where she was a doctoral student. He was 52 and she was 28 years old.[47] Both were enthusiastic naturalists. They remained married until his death.[47]
By the 1980s Durrell was experiencing significant health challenges. He underwent hip-replacement surgery in a bid to counter arthritis, and he also suffered from alcohol-related liver problems. His health deteriorated rapidly after the 1990 Madagascar trip. Durrell had a liver transplant in King's College Hospital on 28 March 1994,[48] and he died of septicaemia on 30 January 1995, shortly after his 70th birthday in Jersey General Hospital.[49] His ashes are buried in Jersey Zoo, under a memorial plaque bearing a quote by William Beebe:
The beauty and genius of a work of art may be re-conceived, though its first material expression be destroyed; a vanished harmony may yet again inspire the composer; but when the last individual of a race of living beings breathes no more, another heaven and another earth must pass before such a one can be again. (The Bird, 1906)
Durrell's books have a very loose style which pokes fun at himself as well as those around him. Perhaps his best-known work is My Family and Other Animals (1956), which tells of his idyllic childhood on Corfu and was developed into two TV series and one film. It is deprecating about the whole family, especially elder brother Lawrence, who became a famous novelist. Despite Durrell's jokes at Lawrence's expense, the two were close friends all their lives.
Durrell always insisted that he wrote for royalties to help the cause of environmental stewardship, not out of an inherent love for writing. He describes himself as a writer in comparison to his brother:
The subtle difference between us is that he loves writing and I don't. To me it's simply a way to make money which enables me to do my animal work, nothing more.[50]
Durrell was a regular contributor to magazines on both sides of the Atlantic, including Harper's, Atlantic Monthly, and the Sunday Times Supplement. He was also a regular book reviewer for The New York Times. A number of excerpts and stories from his books were used by Octopus Books and Reader's Digest Publishing, including in the Reader's Digest Condensed Books. His works have been translated into 31 languages and made into TV serials and feature films. He has large followings in Northern and Eastern Europe, Russia, Israel, and various Commonwealth countries, including India. The British Library houses a collection of Durrell's books as part of the Lawrence Durrell Collection.
Durrell was a talented artist and caricaturist, but worked with numerous illustrators over the years, starting with Sabine Baur for The Overloaded Ark (published by Faber and Faber). Two of his most productive collaborations were with Ralph Thompson (Bafut Beagles, Three Singles To Adventure, The New Noah, The Drunken Forest, Encounters with Animals, A Zoo in My Luggage, The Whispering Land, Menagerie Manor) (published by Rupert Hart-Davis) and Edward Mortelmans (Catch Me A Colobus, Beasts in My Belfry, Golden Bats and Pink Pigeons) (published by Collins). The illustrations are mostly sketches of animal subjects. Ralph Thompson visited the Jersey Zoological Park during the sketching period for Menagerie Manor.
Other illustrators who worked with Durrell were Barry L. Driscoll, who illustrated Two in the Bush; Pat Marriott, who illustrated Look at Zoos; and Anne Mieke van Ogtrop, who illustrated The Talking Parcel and Donkey Rustlers.
Durrell wrote a number of lavishly illustrated children's books in his later years. Graham Percy was the illustrator for The Fantastic Flying Journey and The Fantastic Dinosaur Adventure. Toby the Tortoise and Keeper were illustrated by Keith West. His Puppy board books were illustrated by Cliff Wright.
Durrell featured in the United Nations' Roll of Honour for Environmental Achievement in 1988, becoming part of 500 people ("Global 500") to be given this honour in the period 1987–92.
The journal Biodiversity and Conservation brought out a special volume of the journal in tribute to Gerald Durrell, on the theme of "The Role of Zoos" in 1995, following his death.
The Gerald Durrell Memorial Funds, launched in 1996, are granted in the field of conservation by the Wildlife Trust every year.
The statue park in Miskolc Zoo, created a bust of Gerald Durrell in 1998. Whipsnade Zoo also unveiled a new island for housing primates dedicated to Durrell in 1998.[52]
The Durrell School in Corfu, established in 2002, offers an academic course and tours in the footsteps of the Durrells in Corfu. Botanist David Bellamy conducted field trips in Corfu for the school.
The town hall of Corfu announced in 2006 that it would rename Corfu Bosketto (a park in the city of Corfu) Bosketto Durrell, after Gerald and Lawrence Durrell as a mark of respect.[53]
Wildlife Preservation Canada established the Gerald Durrell Society in 2006 as recognition for individuals who have made legacy gifts.
The de-rodentification of Rat Island in Saint Lucia by the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust to create a sanctuary for the Saint Lucia whiptail lizard on the lines of Praslin Island has caused an official change in name for Rat Island. It is in the process of being renamed Durrell Island.[54]
The Visitors' Centre at the Belize Zoo is named the Gerald Durrell Visitors' Centre in honour of Durrell.
Cornwall college Newquay's centre for applied zoology has two buildings, one the Durrell Building, opened by his wife Lee Durrell in 2007.
Centrolene durrellorum: A glassfrog of the family Centrolenidae from the eastern Andean foothills of Ecuador, discovered in 2002 and described in 2005. This frog was named in honour of Gerald Durrell and his wife Lee Durrell "for their contributions to the conservation of global biodiversity".[56]
Mauritius and other Mascarene Islands and Madagascar
Conservation mission and animal collecting expedition for local breeding and Jersey Zoo to be filmed for a BBC TV series about the Trust's role in other countries
Animal Pie, an unpublished book of lighthearted animal poems and caricatures, written in the 1950s [referenced in the official Douglas Botting biography]
In case of simultaneous releases in many countries, the UK edition is referred to, except for companion books to TV series where both the UK and US editions are referred to.
Himself and Other Animals: A Portrait of Gerald Durrell, David Hughes (1976)
In The Footsteps of Lawrence Durrell and Gerald Durrell in Corfu (1935–39), Hilary Whitton Paipeti (1998)
Gerald Durrell: The Authorized Biography, Douglas Botting (1999)
"Durrelliania": An Illustrated Checklist of Inscribed Books of Lawrence Durrell and Gerald Durrell and Associated Publications, Letters and Notes in the Library of Jeremy J. C. Mallinson, edited by Jeremy Mallinson (1999)
Amateurs in Eden: The Story of a Bohemian Marriage: Nancy and Lawrence Durrell, Joanna Hodgkin (2012)
A Memorial Celebration for the Life of Gerald Durrell (1995)
World of Animals episode on Gerald Durrell and Jersey Zoo, Channel One, Moscow (2004)
The Wild Life of Gerald Durrell, BBC Four (December 2005)
Wildlife in a War Zone, using archival Durrell footage and examining the changes brought about by war in Sierra Leone, Animal Planet, May 2006
Archive Hour with Bridget Nicholls: Discover Your Inner Durrell, BBC Radio 4 (September 2006)[61]
Fierce Creatures, a 1997 comedic film about a zoo in peril of being closed written by John Cleese, starring Cleese, Jamie Lee Curtis, Kevin Kline, and Michael Palin, is dedicated to Gerald Durrell and British humorist Peter Cook in the closing credits, with their photographs and dates of birth and death.[62]
A time capsule buried at Jersey Zoo in 1988 contains the following popular quote by Durrell, often used in conservation awareness campaigns:
We hope that there will be fireflies and glow-worms at night to guide you and butterflies in hedges and forests to greet you.
We hope that your dawns will have an orchestra of bird song and that the sound of their wings and the opalescence of their colouring will dazzle you.
We hope that there will still be the extraordinary varieties of creatures sharing the land of the planet with you to enchant you and enrich your lives as they have done for us.
We hope that you will be grateful for having been born into such a magical world.
Gerald Durrell has one entry in the 8th Edition of The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations.
"Many people think conservation is just about saving fluffy animals—what they don't realise is that we are trying to prevent the human race from committing suicide."[63][64]
^Lawrence and Nancy married in secret in January 1935.[14]
^Gerald and Lawrence gave multiple accounts of how the decision was reached: the poor English climate, Louisa's growing dependence on alcohol, and financial problems may all have played a part.[15]
^Durrell's biographer, Douglas Botting, records that she was seven years old in January 1937, which would have made her five years younger than Gerald, but Michael Haag, author of The Durrells of Corfu, quotes her in 2017 as saying she was then 90 years old.[24][25]
^These included Pat Evans, a friend of Lawrence's, who was dismissed, accordingly to Gerald, because he and Margo were becoming attached to each other; the Belgian consul in Corfu town, who attempted to teach Gerald French; and a Polish exile named Krajewski.[30]
^Lawrence and Nancy left for Athens and then Alexandria; Nancy was subsequently evacuated to Palestine. Margaret married in 1940 and went with her husband when he was posted to Africa.[36]
^Usher, Shaun (2017). More Letters of Note : Correspondence Deserving of a Wider Audience. Edinburgh, United Kingdom: Canongate Books Ltd. ISBN978-1786891693.
^Laubacher, G.; Boucot, A. J.; Orstom, J. Gray (1982). "Additions to Silurian Stratigraphy, Lithofacies, Biogeography and Paleontology of Bolivia and Southern Peru". Journal of Paleontology. 56 (5): 1138–1170. JSTOR1304572.
^Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. ISBN978-1-4214-0135-5. ("Durrell", p. 78).
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