Biographical dictionary

Born in Ipswich and after leaving school continued his education at a teacher training college to become a science teacher. His first post was at the Sir Anthony Deane School in Dovercourt. Later he went on to train as a special needs teacher, becoming Head of Department, but had to retire early through ill health.

Nash was interested in music and fishing in his youth but entomology, particularly beetles, soon became his main focus and retirement gave him the opportunity to devote his attention to it. After returning to Suffolk, where he stayed for the rest of his life, he took on the role of county recorder and became a prolific writer of notes and papers, 171 of which are listed as part of his obituary, by Tony Drane, Martin Collier and Clare and Colin Johnson, in EMM, 151, 2015, 215 -223. Most concern findings in Suffolk, but amongst them are some devoted to historical and biographical subjects - he had an impressive collection of literature related to beetles - and others of a serious but more humorous nature such as 'Lewd collecting technique' in Coleopterists Newsletter,  18, 1984, 8-9 in which he described collecting in public lavatories warning that collectors should not work in pairs for fear of the 'strange knowing looks from other customers', and another being a fake obituary of B. Laps in White Admiral, Newsletter of the Suffolk Naturalists' Society. His biographers also note that he was very practical and fond of making traps and other collecting apparatus from items around the house and purchased at car boot sales.

During the 1970s he formed a deep attachment with Colin Johnson and the coterie of northern coleopterists including Peter Skidmore and Stan Bowestead, and in the south with Cliff Barham. Of his friendship with the Johnsons, they wrote that they knew him for about 40 years after he had stayed with them for a week or two over the Summer holidays around 1977, and that the visit had turned into an annual event. They describe many happy collecting trips in the surrounding Dales, some with their family, and that David was very helpful to their children, teaching them about fishing and fungi.

But friendship such as this were rare for Nash who did not find close relationships easy, and much of his communication with fellow workers, including the current writer, was carried out through long and detailed telephone conversations.

Apart from his work on the Suffolk fauna he was also very helpful to the present writer with the Wiltshire beetles and the editors of EMM kindly allowed me to add the following to his obituary (152, 78(1), 78): David published some important papers on the Wilts. fauna including the addition of Epierus comptus (Erichson) to the UK list and the rediscovery of Silpha carinata Herbst in Britain (neither of which, incidentally, have I been able to find since). These encouraged me to write to him when I was compiling my book on the Wiltshire fauna to ask if there were any unpublished records which he might be prepared to let me have. The response was astonishing. He sent me a copy of his detailed database (the programming for which he had compiled himself) containing several thousand records of no less than 1,067 species.

            After a brief stay in 1942 David had visited the county two or three times a year from 1969-1989 (missing out in 1981 and 1984) with a final visit in 1991. He lodged with a relative in Salisbury and most of his collecting was carried out around the city, particularly in Grovely and Great Ridge Woods, and on the Hamptworth Estate where he made many remarkable finds.. This was at the time Charles Mackechnie Jarvis lived in Salisbury and David remembered many memorable meetings with him in his impressive house in the Cathedral Close, which he much enjoyed telling me about in some of his famous telephone conversations. These led to Mackechnie Jarvis a good ftriend and to David writing Charles' obituary in the British Journal of Entomology and Natural History in 2011.

            In sending his records to me David explained that he had hoped to produce a Wiltshire list himself but failing health had prevented it, and in typically generous fashion he gave me free rein to use them as I wished. The result is that hardly a page of the book does not include a reference to him somewhere particularly amongst the smallest and most difficult species, a testimony to his great knowledge and skill as a Coleopterist. But in addition to this kindness he not only continued to help me during the three years when I was compiling the book, but he also agreed to read through the entire manuscript (345 pages) making many helpful and important corrections and additions.

            As a small mark of respect and gratitude for David's help and friendship I have been pleased to name a species of Bolivian Ptiliidae after him Acrotrichis nashi.'

His collection was donated to the Hope Department at Oxford.

The EMM obituary includes a photograph. (MD 1/22)

Collected with H.K.Airy Shaw in Gloucestershire 1942-5, See AIRY-SHAW, H.K. (MD 8/17)