The Evolutionary Studies Institute was first named the Bernard Price Institute after
Bernard Price, an
engineer and general manager of the
Victoria Falls and Transvaal Power Company who provided steady research
funding. The institute was set up in 1937 as an institute for
geophysical research, but since has become known for its
paleontological research. The institute's first director was
Basil Schonland. When
World War II began in 1939, the
South African Defense Force ordered the BPI to contribute to the war effort.
Schonland led the development of South Africa's first
radar system during this time. At the end of the war in 1945, the research focus of the Bernard Price Institute changed to
paleontology. This was entirely due to the actions of a well-known
Scottish-born
physician and
paleontologist, Dr
Robert Broom. Broom, who had lived in the small town of
Pearston between
Graaff-Reinet and
Somerset East, had been studying
therapsid fossils of the
Karoo since the early 1900s. During his time living in the
Karoo where he ran his
medical practice, Broom befriended C. J. M. "Croonie" Kitching, a
quantity surveyor from
Nieu-Bethesda, and
Sidney H. Haughton, a
geologist and
paleontologist who lived on the farm, Wellwood, close to town.
Haughton regularly invited
Broom to his farm where he housed a personal collection of fossils he had recovered from his property. Kitching and his three sons,
James, Ben, and Scheepers, regularly joined
Broom on field trips around
Graaff-Reinet and
Nieu-Bethesda collecting fossils. Broom was also close friends with
Raymond Dart and had contributed to the discovery and research of
hominin fossils, namely of
Australopithecus and
Paranthropus, that had been recovered from
Sterkfontein and
Makapansgat. In 1945
Broom, who was working at the
Transvaal Museum in
Pretoria at the time, gave a
public lecture at the
University of the Witwatersrand. During his lecture,
Broom informed all in attendance of the plight of South African fossils. Thousands of fossils were being lost every year in South Africa because there were no museums or places of research adequately equipped to store, categorize, and protect fossils that were recovered from the field.
Broom stated that an academic premises dedicated to the endeavor of
paleontological research was sorely needed in order for the prolific number of fossils collected to be stored correctly, studied effectively and that fossil discoveries of South Africa could be made known to the rest of the world. One of the attendees of Broom's lecture was
Bernard Price. Broom's eloquence and passion for South Africa's fossil discoveries persuaded Price to approach Broom and the university. Price soon provided the start-up capital needed to establish a research institute at the university dedicated to the collection,
curation and research of South African
fossils. It was decided that the
geophysics research lab be moved to the main
geology building on the
University of the Witwatersrand campus, and the Bernard Price Institute was subsequently renamed the Bernard Price Institute of Palaeontological Research. Once the BPI was formally set up,
Broom recommended that the young
James Kitching, on his return from military service at the end of
World War II, be the fledgling institute's first director. Kitching was signed in as the first member of staff on 26 October 1945. Within a week of his appointment as Director,
Kitching took a train from
Johannesburg back to
Graaff-Reinet to embark on his first official field trip for the BPI.
Kitching borrowed his widowed mother's Buick sedan which he used as his field vehicle for his field trips around
Graaff-Reinet and
Nieu-Bethesda. Within five months
Kitching, with the aid of his younger brothers, had assembled a collection of more than 200
fossil specimens as research material for the Bernard Price Institute, mostly skulls of
therapsid species.
Price was so thrilled with the success of the institute's first field trip that he doubled his funding propositions for the BPI. This allowed the institute to extend its field collecting activities to include
Sterkfontein in the north and also the
Makapansgat caves at what was then known as the Northern Transvaal (now
Limpopo Province) of
South Africa. Over the following decades, the academic staff of the Bernard Price Institute led numerous research teams to
Antarctica, the
Americas,
continental Europe, and
Russia. From the 1990s, the
hominin fossil-bearing sites were discovered to be far more widespread. Researchers discovered new sites such as
Gladysvale,
Kromdraai, Environs Sites,
Malapa, Maropeng, and
Rising Star Cave. With exception of the Rising Star Cave, these new sites along with
Sterkfontein and
Makapansgat are now part of the greater
Cradle of Humankind world heritage site. In addition, archaeology work has been led at sites such as
Blombos Cave and the Klipdrift Shelter in association with the institute. A separate
hominin fossil vault has also been set up to separately store hominin fossils recovered from the various hominid-bearing fossil sites around the country. When
Kitching retired in 1990, the Director's post of the Bernard Price Institute was awarded to Professor Bruce Rubidge, the grandson of
Sidney H. Haughton. Rubidge held his directorship position until the end of 2016, however, he still works closely with the institute. It is well known in the
paleontology community of
South Africa that
Haughton and the Kitchings sparked the same passion for paleontology in Rubidge as a young boy that they had possessed. A brother of Rubidge, who inherited the Wellwood farm, maintains the Karoo fossil collection housed at the farm. The Evolutionary Studies Institute remains an active research and teaching institution whose small staff and their students remain dedicated to exploring the fossils of the
Karoo Basin and the famous
hominin fossil-bearing sites - true to the original dreams of
Broom and
Price. ==Research==