| Description | This series consists primarily of the correspondence of successive curators of birds, and later departmental correspondence from the Bird Section. The correspondence deals with accessions to the collections, the loan and exchange of specimens, collecting expeditions, Museum and other publications, and general scientific and popular enquiries. Because Richard Bowdler Sharpe was also in charge of the Vertebrate section, early volumes contain a certain amount of general vertebrate correspondence and are bound with the title 'Letters. Vertebrata'.
Correspondence appears to have mainly been answered by the person responsible for managing the Bird Section at the time.
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| AdminHistory | Richard Bowdler Sharpe (1847-1909) joined the Museum in 1872, having been Librarian to the Zoological Society. Sharpe was a hard worker and a prolific writer, who became the leading ornithologist of his generation. He was author of eleven volumes of the Museum's Catalogue of Birds (1875-1899), as well as many other ornithological works. He was responsible for huge additions to the already large collection of birds. He was succeeded on his death by William Robert Ogilvie-Grant (1863-1924), who had joined the Museum in 1882 and had been Sharpe's assistant since about 1884. Ogilvie-Grant went on collecting expeditions to Socotra, the Azores and elsewhere, and was involved in major expeditions to the Ruwenzori and Dutch New Guinea. He was the author of Museum catalogues and handbook, as well as many unofficial papers and reports. He was described by his obituarist as having an overbearing temper and a sharp tongue. Ogilvie-Grant resigned through ill health in 1918.
The chronology of those responsible for managing the bird section is as follows:
G R Gray 1831-1872
Dr R B Sharpe 1872-1909
W R Ogilvie-Grant 1909-1918
Dr P R Lowe 1919-1935
N B Kinnear (later Sir Norman) 1936-1945
J D Macdonald 1945-1968
Dr D W Snow 1968-July 1976
I C J Galbraith July 1976-1985
G S Cowles/I R Bishop 1985-1991
Dr R P Prys-Jones 1992-2016
M Adams 2016-2017 (Acting)
Dr A Bond 2017 – present
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