Gervase Phinn: In praise of eccentrics

"Yorkshire!" he cried, "the home of the great Charles Waterton." I was then informed that Waterton inspired Charles Darwin and many other scientists and was England's first eco-campaigner, an outspoken pioneer and conservationist, a passionate man who despised the destruction of the natural environment. Embarrassed, I had to admit that I had never heard of the said gentleman.

Back home I undertook a little research. Born at Walton Hall in Wakefield in 1782 "Squire" Waterton travelled widely exploring remote areas in the world and recording his observations and discoveries in wonderful detail. In 1825 he published a travelogue, Wanderings in South America, which became an instant bestseller.

His love of animals and of the natural beauty of the tropical rainforest fills every page. He created England's first wildfowl and nature reserve on his estate at a cost of 6,000, which was a considerable sum of money in those days. He fought a long-running and ultimately successful case against the owners of a soap works. The factory, close to his estate, exuded toxic chemicals causing widespread pollution.

Waterton was an odd character, one of the world's great eccentrics, of striking appearance and with an anarchic sense of humour.

Waterton didn't care what others thought of him or how crackpot they thought his opinions. Edith Sitwell, his biographer in English Eccentrics, concluded he was an extremely happy man. "Few of us," she wrote, "are so full of life, love, curiosity and plain joy." I guess he would have made a splendid teacher. I have to admit that when I visited schools as an inspector, I always had a soft spot for the teacher who was a little bit out of the ordinary. Some, of course, would say that there is no room in education for the eccentric teacher. I would disagree. Thinking of my own schooldays, it was the teachers who were idiosyncratic and who did not always follow the various directives who made the greatest impression upon me.

In a rather gloomy and violent world there is room for the Charles Watertons because eccentrics, in my experience, brighten our lives; they are the less inhibited and more imaginative and are often disarmingly childlike in their approach to life than we "ordinary" folk. And, after all there is a pantheon of men and women – Isaac Newton, Mary Ward, Elizabeth Fry, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, William Blake, Charles Darwin, Winston Churchill, Barnes Wallis, Lewis Carroll and many more – who were labelled outspoken, non-conformist and eccentric during their lifetimes and who have gone on to be viewed by later generations as monumental people, gifted with originality and vision.