The Past
Barbara
York Main
BSc (Hons) 1951, PhD 1956
Inspired by a rural upbringing in the WA Wheatbelt, I knew early in life that I wanted to be a naturalist and a writer and during my high school years I became especially interested in insects and spiders. In 1947 I enrolled in a B.S.c. at UWA, the option of Science in the School of Arts having ceased the year before. My leaving home to attend University cannot have been easy for my parents financially, although conditions on the family farm had eased since the severe austerity before and during the war. Had UWA charged tuition fees, their decision might well have been different. I majored in Zoology, then completed an Honours degree in 1950.
Following this I accepted an Assistant Lecturer position at Otago University in Dunedin, New Zealand, where I worked under Professor Brian Marples until 1952, beginning a PhD on orb weaver spiders. However, I then returned to WA in 1952 to marry Bert Main, whom I had met when we were both Zoology undergraduate students. Again enrolled at UWA, I was the second female PhD student in Zoology. My thesis examined the ecoevolutionary radiation of a group of trap door spiders. This involved detailed field observations on numerous collecting trips around WA and South Australia, and extending as far away as Queensland.
Our first child was born following award of my PhD in 1956 and over the next
eight years we had two more children. I continued my research at home and
managed to publish two books, a text book chapter and several research papers
in this time. I was allowed access to the Zoology Department facilities and
shared a small amount of space with my husband, but had limited financial
support and no status on staff until appointed an honorary lecturer there in
1979. I was also able to travel, including an early six month trip to the
Natural History Museum, London, and the Hope Museum, (Oxford) in 1958 on an
International Federation of University Women Alice Hamilton fellowship. Bert’s
early work on frogs involved field trips, many of which we spent together with
the children, enabling me to collect widely. We all went with Bert on study
leave to Queensland in 1965, and during the years subsequently I have been on
many field trips throughout southern Australia, Tasmania and the Kimberley. In
this way I have been able to build up a collection of mygalomorph (trap door)
spiders to perhaps the most representative for Australia. The collection is
now housed in the Zoology building of the School of Animal Biology at UWA. I
have also travelled in Papua New Guinea, North America, South Africa and
Europe and maintain an association with colleagues around the world, along
with memberships of various scientific and literary societies.
I have been able to fulfil my ambition to combine natural history with writing, including four books and over 80 publications. As well as arachnid literature the list includes popular natural history writing, essays and articles on social history and landscape changes of the wheat belt. Scientific contributions include unique long term studies of life history/demography of several marked field populations of trapdoor spiders, which include two individuals now 31 years old. The maximum age of spiders is still not known, but this extraordinary life span has significant implications for conservation and management in small reserves and remnant bushland. In spite of an awareness of landscape degradation, particularly in W.A., I sustain an enduring optimism and belief in an underlying harmony between the landscape and its resident people.