Love the garden rules......most appropriate to this gentleman, who, though I had never heard of, think the village was justly proud of.
Jonathan Couch, born in 1789, was a British naturalist, the only child of a family long resident at Polperro. He studied at medical schools in London, returned to Polperro in 1810 and then applied his surgical skills to the dissection and study of the fish that were so vital to the welfare of his village.
Besides being the local doctor and apothecary, often riding miles to visit patients, he was a zoologist, ichthyologist, botanist, archaeologist, Methodist preacher and classical scholar. He relied on knowledgeable local fishermen to help him in his research. The welfare of the fishermen and the prosperity of the fisheries were in his care together with his medical and scientific work.
His major publication was the four volume Fishes of the British Islands. He also wrote diversely about the birds, bats, bees, fossils, flowering plants, sharks, crabs, porpoises, potato disease, shooting stars, medicine and religion. His other notable publication was his History of Polperro published in 1871 shortly after his death.
A family man, widowed twice and married three times, he had 11 children.