| Activity | Eldest son of the ornithologist P L Sclater, William Lutley Sclater was on the supernumary staff of the Museum from 1909 to the time of his death in 1944, based in the Bird Room. He had been at the Indian Museum, Calcutta, then was Director of the South African Museum in Cape Town from 1896 to 1906, then manager of the Colorado College Museum in the USA. He was author of Systema Avium Aethiopicarum (1924 & 1930) He managed the Bird Room in 1918 and 1919 after the retirement of W.R. Ogilvie Grant and until the appointment of Dr P R Lowe. He started editing the Aves Section of the Zoological Record on the death of R B Sharpe in 1909 and continued this for 35 years until his death. He succeeded his father as Editor of The Ibis (1913-1930), was Vice-President of the BOU (1922 & 1926) and its President (1928-1933) and Godman-Salvin medallist (1930). He was Chairman of the British Ornithologists' Club (1918-1924) and Hon. Secretary of the Royal Geographical Society (1931-1944). At the beginning of July 1944 his flat at 10 Sloane Court, Chelsea, London SW3 was hit by a flying-bomb and he died of his injuries a few days later. His name is on the memorial in the entrance hall at South Kensington.
Obituary: Ibis 1945: 115-121, bibliography, portrait. Portrait Ibis 1959, pl.2. See Kelly's Handbook 1932: 1528. |