Colonel Henry Wemyss Feilden (1838−1921) was a British Army officer, Arctic explorer and naturalist.
Feilden was the second son of Sir William Henry Feilden (1812−1879), 2nd Baronet of Feniscowles). After joining the Black Watch,[1] at the age of nineteen, he fought in the suppression of the Indian Mutiny. He also volunteered on the side of the Confederate Army during the American Civil War of 1862−1865,[2] after which he returned to the British Army, where he made captain in the Royal Artillery in 1874. He also served at the Taku Forts in China and in the First Boer War in 1881 and again in Africa in 1890. He was decorated for his service in India, China and South Africa, and was awarded the C.B. in 1900.[3]
Feilden also collected information on the geology, flora and fauna of newly explored areas, and served as naturalist on Sir George Nares' Northern Polar Expedition in 1875 on board Alert. He was a fast friend of the famous writer and poet Rudyard Kipling.[2]
In 1864, Feilden married Julia, daughter of Judge David MacCord of South Carolina.[3] In 1880 Feilden settled in Wells-next-the-Sea, Norfolk. Feilden joined the Norfolk and Norwich Naturalists' Society in 1880 and became President in 1885. He lived in Norfolk for over 20 years, moving to Burwash, Sussex in 1902. Feilden contributed to Transactions of the Norfolk and Norwich Naturalists' Society and submitted scientific papers to The Zoologist and Ibis (the journal of the British Ornithologists' Union, to which he was elected in 1873), amongst others.[2]
Feilden partook in expeditions to Novaya Zemlya, Kolguyev, Spitsbergen, Lapland and the Kara Sea between 1895 and 1897.[1]
As well as being a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, Feilden was nominated as a Fellow of the Royal Society of London, but was rejected. The following is from his nomination certificate:
Was naturalist to Sir George Nares' Polar Expedition of 1875−6, when, besides making large and valuable zoological observations and collections, he laid down the geology of 300 miles of the coast of Smith's Sound, and brought home 2000 specimens, carefully localised, illustrating and confirming his surveys. On the same voyage he discovered the Miocene Flora of Grinnell's Land, his collection and observations on which from an important contribution to Heer's "Flora Fossilis Arctica." He has made three subsequent voyages to Arctic Europe and Asia, visiting Novaya Zemlya, Barents Land, Kolguev Island, Spitsbergen, and Russian Lapland, for the purpose of collating the geology, zoology, and botany of Arctic Europe with those of America…
Feilden died at his home in Burwash in 1921, aged 83, about one year after his wife. He had no children.[3]