Career

Collecting localities

Collections

Literature

Biographical data

 

Shelford, Robert Walter Campbell

 

(Source: Flora Malesiana ser. 1, 1: Cyclopaedia of collectors)

(Source: Flora Malesiana ser. 1, 8: Cyclopaedia of collectors, Supplement II)

 

Born: 1872, Singapore. Died: 1912, Margate, England.

 

career:

Zoologist-anthropologist who studied natural history at Cambridge. In 1897 he went to Borneo as Curator of the Sarawak Museum; in 1905 appointed Assistant Curator at Oxford Museum. After leaving Kuching he spent several weeks travelling in the Malay Archipelago (no further data known to me), returning home by way of Japan, Vancouver, and the U.S.A. He suffered from hiptuberculosis.

Dischidia shelfordii Pears. and some other plants were named after him.

 

Collecting localities:

1897-1905. NW. Borneo, Sarawak. A trip to Mt Penrissen (May 1899),1 leaving Kuching on May 5, and back again on June 4; visiting Mt Matang many times; Mt Santubong; Trusan River, northern end of Sarawak (Nov. 1902); Sadong-Tabekang (Aug. 1903), upper waters of the Sadong River (24-25), Lanchang (26-27), upper waters Sadong River (28-31).2

 

collections:

Herb. Sing. [SING]: Sarawak plants (pres. 1902-03). Probably in Herb. Sarawak [SAR] too. The above-mentioned Dischidia in Herb. Kew [K].

literature:

(1) R.W.C. Shelford: ‘A trip to Mount Penrissen’ (Journ. Str. Br. Roy. As. Soc. no 33, 1900, p. 1-26; incl. list of animals and plants, the latter by H.N. Ridley and Bishop Hose).

(2) R.W.C. Shelford (edited by E.B. Poulton): ‘A naturalist in Borneo’ (London 1916).

 

biographical data:

In ‘A naturalist etc.’ l.c., w. portr.; in Bibliogr. Austr. Entom. 1775-1930, 1932.