Margaret Fountaine: a lepidopterist remembered

Margaret Fountaine (1862–1940) was a lepidopterist during a period of transition and professionalization in natural history. Over her lifespan she collected more than 22 000 butterflies, published extensively and wrote a diary of more than a million words. Wealthy and independent, Fountaine toured Europe in her early twenties and then, over the next 50 years, travelled the globe collecting butterflies. Fountaine straddles many of the boundaries that historians have constructed to aid understanding of natural history in this period, specifically those defining gender roles, the nature of scientific knowledge and the divide between amateur and professional. Fountaine reminds us that these categories are never a clear or perfect division and that the reality of natural history research and exchange was much more complex than these boundaries often allow for. Fountaine herself is under-researched and this article contains a useful account of her entomological career.