Gabrielle Maud Vassal

Gabrielle Maud Vassal (neé Candler 5 March 1880 - 31 May 1959) was a British naturalist.

Background

Born in Uppingham in Rutland, England. In 1901 the family had moved to Hampstead in London, where she married Joseph Marguerite Jean-Baptiste Vassal, a physician in the French Colonial Service, in 1903.[1] The couple then moved to Vietnam in 1904.

Vassal was a keen naturalist and supplied numerous specimens from Vietnam, Gabon, and Congo to the Natural History Museum in London for a period of 30 years. Many of her letters to the museum are preserved in their archives.[2] Her specimens included several newly-discovered species, and a number were named after her, including the yellow-cheeked gibbon Nomascus gabriellae.[3]

Vassal became a successful photographer and public speaker. A portrait of Vassal was taken in 1928 and originally owned by Pinewood Studios, then donated to Victoria and Albert Museum in 1989, and is now held in the National Portrait Gallery in London.[4] Vassal authored several books, including a novel titled "A Romance of the Western Front" published in 1918,[5] "On & Off Duty in Annam"[6] and "In and round Yunnan Fou" about her time in Vietnam.[7]

References
  1. "Autumn 2016 - The Gallipoli Association". www.gallipoli-association.org.
  2. "Correspondence with Gabrielle Maud Vassal". www.nhm.ac.uk. Natural History Museum. Retrieved 9 June 2020.
  3. Gulliver, Katrina (April 2020). "Gabrielle Vassal (1880–1959): collecting specimens in Indochina for the British Museum (Natural History), 1900–1915". Archives of Natural History. 47 (1): 29–40. doi:10.3366/anh.2020.0619.
  4. "Gabrielle M. Vassal (née Candler) - National Portrait Gallery". www.npg.org.uk.
  5. Vassal, Gabrielle (1918). A Romance of the Western Front. William Heinemann.
  6. Vassal, Gabrielle. On & off duty in Annam. p. 228. ISBN 978-1290822565.
  7. Vassal, Gabrielle. In and round Yunnan Fou. p. 232. ISBN 978-0649079568.
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