Alfred Diston was born in 1793 in Lowestoft, an important fishing port and Great Britain's easternmost point, to a seafaring family. In 1810, at the age of 17, Alfred Diston arrives at Puerto de La Orotava after being hired by the British firm Pasley, Little & Co., a company that exported wine from the Canary Islands. Since then, he lived in Puerto de La Orotava for 51 years until he died in 1861. Diston was characterized by having a multifaceted curiosity (ethnography, history, botany, geology, meteorology...), by his taste for travelling and by his observation skills, which is reflected in his meticulous drawings, his calligraphy and his numerous notebooks with annotations of all sorts. In 1836, he marries Soledad Orea y Luna according to Catholic rites. Soledad, who was born in Cádiz in 1810, bore him four children. This marriage was likely the reason why Diston ends up settling in the Canaries and remains in Puerto de La Orotava until his death at the age of 65. José Agustín Álvarez Rixo, in his
Anales del Puerto de la Cruz de La Orotava (Annals of Puerto de la Cruz de La Orotava) of 3 April 1861, informed about Diston's sudden passing the night before: 1861. 3 April. At eight o’clock in the evening, whilst playing checkers with his wife, Mr Alfred Diston, Protestant English who had been living among us since 1810, dies suddenly [...]. He was buried in the Protestant cemetery of Puerto de La Orotava.
Merchant At the age of 17, Diston arrives at Puerto de La Orotava as an employee of Pasley, Little & Co., a firm that exports whine from the Canary Islands. His main task was to receive every merchant and traveller that arrived at Tenerife referred to the firm, accompanying them and introducing them to the island's society. In 1774, John Pasley, British consul in Tenerife (1765-1769), requested the presence and assistance of his nephew,
the Scotsman Sir Archibald Little, founding the trading house Pasley, Little & Co., which became the most important Canarian wine exporting firm during the first third of the 19th century. A few years after his arrival, Diston was appointed administrator and, later, branch office manager until he finally became a senior partner.
Ethnographer , 1828 Alfred Diston's main contribution to the culture of the Canary Islands are the three well-known manuscripts of his work
Costumes of the Canary Islands: the manuscript of the Kunstbibliothek in Berlin (1824); the manuscript sent to London, whose first part was published in 1829 by the leading publishing house
Smith, Elder & Co.; and finally the manuscript belonging to the family de Lorenzo-Cáceres y Torres, which includes drawings made between 1829-1847, and which has recently been published as a
facsimile. In the middle of the
Romantic era, between 1820 and 1840, there was a great interest in Europe, specifically in everything related to Spain and to the working classes. It is the era of
travel literature, when works often came with
engravings or
lithographs—a recently discovered technique (1796) that made illustrated editions cheaper. This environment could explain Alfred Diston's personal taste for drawing and writing every remarkable thing he saw. In his
watercolours and gouaches, Diston shows in extensive detail the characteristics of the islands, as well as the considerably varied popular clothing, and the different local colours, professions and customs. Despite the recognition of his contemporaries (locals and foreigners), Alfred Diston's work went unnoticed until one of his descendants highlighted the value of his manuscripts and remarks (1931; 1944 his name and importance began to become known, not only at academic and specialised levels but also in
folkloric and popular settings.
Intellectual and artistic contributor to the publications of scientists and travellers His dual status as British and Canarian (by adoption), his welcoming personality and his knowledge of the Canaries motivated many of the visitors to Tenerife, mostly English speakers, to seek his collaboration as an informant, host, guide or simple companion. Daniel J. Browne, an American who visited Tenerife in 1834, wrote:
[...] "Port Orotava, Wednesday, August 22, 1833. I arrived here late last evening, lame and worn out with fatigue ; and to-day have taken up my residence during my stay in this place with Mr. Alfred Diston, an English merchant, a gentleman no less distinguished for general information than for the friendly services which he has rendered scientific men who have visited these regions". 6
[...] "San Cristóbal de La Laguna, Thursday, October 10, 1833. After a protracted and satisfactory visit at Port Orotava, I took leave of my intelligent and hospitable friend, Mr. Diston, whose kind attentions I gratefully acknowledge, and shall long cherish them in my remembrance". Although most of the original drawings of the work were made in the Canary Islands by the enigmatic J. J. Williams and at least fourteen of the drawings and all the maps were made by Berthelot himself; Alfred Diston contributed to the work with six drawings of people wearing traditional costumes that were later lithographed in Paris The British consul from 1825 to 1830, Francis Coleman McGregor, also relied on Diston as his informant and for making all the illustrations and maps of his work
Die Canarischen Inseln (Hannover, 1831). The painter
Elizabeth Murray (née Heaphy), wife of a new British consul in the island, was the author of a well-known and controversial monograph about her stay in the Canary Islands. She kept in close contact with Alfred Diston and stayed for a month in his residence in Puerto de La Orotava (1857). There, she had the chance to paint the only known portrait of Diston, as well as to supervise the progress of Diston's daughter, Soledad Diston, as a watercolourist. Diston wrote sixty pages of
Notes furnished Mrs. Murray for her intender work of these Islands prebendary of the Cathedral of San Cristóbal de La Laguna and parish priest of the parish of Tegueste; and the chronicler of Puerto de La Cruz, José Agustín Álvarez Rixo (1796-1883). The renowned prebendary Pacheco was a historian, a scholar and author of a great variety of manuscripts on different subjects that, just as Diston did, illustrated his work with his own drawings, some of them of costumes and uniforms. Álvarez Rixo also exchanged letters, news and local information with Diston. In his
Anales del Puerto de la Cruz de La Orotava, he leaves proof of Diston's extraordinary intellectual prowess:''[...] "being the best calligrapher in perhaps the entire province, he was also fond of drawing and painted our customs with his annotations that he printed in London in 1829. Likewise, he had collected several historical curiosities about these islands, merits for which he deserves to be remembered, as have some of the travellers that were referred to the firm Pasley, Little & Co., under Diston's management".'' thought of him when the position of manager of the Acclimatisation Gardens of La Orotava (actual Botanical Garden of Puerto de la Cruz ) became vacant and without possibility of remuneration. They would also entrust him with the tasks of conservation and inspection. Although he was technically appointed as one of the three members of an acting commission, Alfred Diston was, in practice and for 14 years, the one who took over the managing tasks. Without a budget to cover the basic maintenance tasks, those years were critical for the Botanical Garden's survival, and he even had to contribute with his own money to cover several urgent expenses. Without Alfred Diston's intervention, the survival of the Botanical Garden would have probably been compromised. He inventoried the different plant collections and intervened in the resolution of different disputes related to the water supply, salary arrears and complaints about the gardener's work. In 1819, he managed to acclimatise various
Maranta arundinacea rhizomes from
Madeira in the country estate that his boss, Archibald Little, had in Puerto de La Orotava, a garden known today as Jardín Sitio Litre. This plant was used to obtain a type of starch (arrowroot) that was valued at the time for cooking purposes. In 1846, Diston introduced in Tenerife 3,000 rootstocks of turpentine pine from England. In 1847, he sent French honeysuckle seeds (
Hedysarum coronarium) to the RSEAP, a Mediterranean fodder plant used as animal feed. Diston had brought them from a trip to
Malta, where part of his family resided at the time. However, Alfred Diston's biggest impact on the economy of the Canary Islands was when he introduced the dwarf
banana cultivar known as
Dwarf Cavendish. It is accepted that the banana from the
Gulf of Guinea was introduced in the Canary Islands in the 15th century, possibly by the Portuguese, and that it was brought to America from the Canary Islands (
Hispaniola, 1516). However, although there is still no certainty about how and when the dwarf variety of the
Cavendish banana was introduced in the Canaries, there is growing evidence that Alfred Diston was the introducer of this variety in the islands. José Agustín Álvarez Rixo (1796-1883), in his undated work
Noticia de varias de las plantas utiles que se han introducido en estas islas canarias en el presente siglo XIX, con los nombres de las personas á quienes debemos su recomendable introducción (no. XXII of file D of his catalogue), indicated that Diston introduced this variety in Tenerife in 1824:
"Dwarf banana. Musa Cavendish. It is fair to honour here the memory of the man who provided us with such a pleasant benefit. In the year 1824, Mr. Alfred Diston, a curious Scotsman who grew up in Puerto de la Cruz, on a trip to his homeland Scotland, saw the dwarf banana from the East Indies—whose botanical name is Musa Cavendish—in the garden of Sir Thomas Hempburen and took a plant that he brought to Tenerife, where it has proliferated admirably, inasmuch as it has three advantages over the plantains or bananas that we have previously known, they are: less risk of the winds affecting its growth, due to its short elevation and the sturdiness of its trunk; it reaches its full growth before the others, and it also produces a larger cluster. Although the bananas are somewhat thinner, some prefer its delicate taste to that of our primitive banana. The desire and impatience to multiply this admirable plant everywhere caused someone to steal the crop that Mr. Diston had in his orchard in Cueva del Pino in 1853, a violent procedure worthy of punishment, if those responsible for the deed had been discovered. El Eco del Comercio (no. 167) published the news of the introduction of this tree in the Canary Islands, as it has been said". also collected the news published on 12 November 1853 by this newspaper from Tenerife. The doctor and botanist
Charles Telfair would have acclimatised the oriental banana seedlings in
Mauritius and then, in 1829, sent them to England. In 1835,
Joseph Paxton, head gardener of
Lord William Cavendish, 6th
Duke of Devonshire, would have succeeded in bringing them to fruition in the Duke's new glasshouses at
Chatsworth House (Derbyshire, England). Later, Sir Thomas Buchan-Hepburn managed to acquire one of these seedlings for his property in Smeaton, East Linton (Scotland). It was probably there where Diston could have obtained this cultivar (in 1846, according
to El Eco del Comercio), due to the fact that Sir Archibald Little, owner of the firm Pasley, Little & Co., was Sir Thomas's father-in-law.
Contributions in geography and geology volcano in Tenerife, 1829 Alfred Diston had several navigational instruments (
nocturnal,
naval compass...) and in his work
Costumes he includes several tables with the geographic coordinates of numerous locations in the islands, as well as the altitude of the islands and the distances between them. He draw several maps of the Canary Islands, one of them is in his family manuscript and other two are included in the work of the British consul Francis Coleman MacGregor. On 29 August 1814, accompanied by three Britons and an American, he climbed from Puerto de La Orotava to the top of the “Peak”, the name that foreign travellers gave to the volcano
Teide (12,198 ft.). He also collected information on the 1798 eruption of the Mountain Chahorra or
Pico Viejo (old peak) of Mount Teide and the Lanzarote eruption in 1824, making sketches and illustrations of volcanological interest that are still preserved.
Contributions in meteorology Alfred Diston also had a barometer, a thermometer and an
anemometer. In
Costumes he includes a table with monthly records of temperatures (maximum, minimum, average), as well as rainfall (number of days of rain) and winds (directions and intensity). He described in detail the terrible
storm from 6 to 9 November 1826 (“Inundation and Hurricane in 1826”), considered the worst meteorological event registered in the history of the Canary Islands 45. His report includes a table with the number of houses that suffered damage and the number of victims and injured in four towns of
Valle de La Orotava. At the same time, he drew a detailed plan
Draughtsman, calligrapher and miniaturist A meticulous draughtsman, he used manly
watercolour in his sketches and life outlines, and gouaches to replicate the motifs of his sketches in his manuscripts. There are still numerous drawings and sketches about a great variety of subjects. The majority of them portray people from the popular classes, peasants or anglers in everyday scenes. Some drawings represent the well-to-do, religious people or people related to the military. He also drew a great number of landscapes and places of the island of Tenerife, plants and flowers, insects, volcanoes or marine scenes. which is exemplified in both a
missal == Works ==