page_title: William Bernhardt Tegetmeier
section_title: Bohemianism
hierarchical_section_title: William Bernhardt Tegetmeier / Bohemianism
caption_attribution_description: Blue pouter (pigeon breed)
context_page_description: William Bernhardt Tegetmeier FZS was an English naturalist, a founding member of the Savage Club, a popular writer and journalist of domestic science. A correspondent and friend of Charles Darwin, Tegetmeier studied pigeon breeds and the optimality of hexagonal honeycomb cells constructed by honeybees. He wrote a number of books dealing with home economics, poultry farming, pigeon breeds, bee-keeping and on the maintenance of livestock.
context_section_description: Around the 1840s, Tegetmeier took some interest in cockfights, writing about them in Colman's Magazine under the pen name of "T. Hornby". Around 1845 he worked briefly as a school teacher and in December of the same year he married Anne Edwards Stone who worked in the school associated with the Home and Colonial School Society college where he taught domestic economy. Their marriage led to their dismissal from their teaching posts but William was reinstated after a while. He wrote several textbooks for students including "Arithmetical tables", "Classification of Animals and Vegetables" and "First Lines of Botany". In 1851 he wrote "The Book of One Hundred Beverages" which included recipes for various non-alcoholic drinks.
  The Tegetmeiers initially lived in a very small house on Drury Lane. They had a daughter Edith in 1847 followed by a son Egbert in 1852 after moving to Tottenham and in 1854 the family moved to Willesden and then Wood Green in 1855.
  Tegetmeier was interested in birds, especially fowl and pigeons, from a young age. He wrote several articles on these topics in the Cottage Gardener and wrote a book on Profitable Poultry. Finding that writing was successful, he began to write many other books including The Poultry Book (1867) and Pigeons (1868) which went through several editions with plates by Harrison Weir. He also wrote on ornamental pheasants and game birds. Charles Darwin's interest in pigeon varieties led him through William Yarrell, for sometime the Tegetmeier's houseowner and a good friend, to Tegetmeier who eventually became a promoter of ideas on evolution. He moved from Wood Green to Fortis Green, near Muswell Hill in 1856.
caption: A blue pouter from the frontispiece of Pigeons (1868)
exif: {}