Bond, Mary Wickham

James Bond (1900-1989) was a leading American ornithologist. He was born on January 4, 1900 in Philadelphia. He attended St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire; Harrow School in England; and Cambridge University, where he received his Bachelor's degree in 1922. In 1925, Bond began working for the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, eventually rising to the position of Curator of Birds. He was an expert in Caribbean birds and wrote the definitive book on the subject, Birds of the West Indies (1936). Bond won the Institute of Jamaica's Musgrave Medal in 1952, the Brewster Medal of the American Ornithologists Union in 1954, the Wilderness Club (Philadelphia) Medal in 1961, the Silver Medal of the Congresso Iber-Americano de Ornitologia in 1983 and the Leidy Medal of the Academy of Natural Sciences in 1975. James Bond died on February 14, 1989. On August 23, 1953, James Bond married Mary Fanning Wickham Porcher Lewis. Mary was born on June 8, 1898 in Philadelphia and received a diploma from Dana Hall in 1916. She also took extension courses in English at Columbia University in 1938 and the University of Pennsylvania in 1940. She was the author of many novels, including The Tilted Cup (1926) and Device and Desire (1950), and wrote for the Chestnut Hill Local, a weekly newspaper, which she also founded and edited. In 1953, Ian Fleming published his first James Bond novel, appropriating Mary's husband's name for his fictional spy character. The resulting escapades prompted Mary to write the story How 007 Got his Name (1966). She further detailed her life with the "real"James Bond in Far Afield in the Caribbean: Migratory Flights of a Naturalist's Wife (1971) and To James Bond with Love (1980). In 1988, Mary wrote an autobiography, Ninety Years at Home in Philadelphia. She died in 1997 at the age of 99.

From the description of Mary Wickham Bond papers on the "real" James Bond, 1907-1997. (Franklin & Marshall College). WorldCat record id: 352886489

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