Born in Hammersmith and educated at Latimer School. Served in the Royal Sussex Regiment 1916-1919 and was wounded at the Battle of the Somme. Subsequently became a sculptor and served as Eric Gill's first apprentice. Lived at Ditchling and was one of the founder members of the Guild of St. Joseph and Dominic there. His carvings are to be found in churches and public buildings at home and abroad. Cribb's interest in Coleoptera started at least as early as the First World War when he is recorded to have collected in the Somme Valley. Although he specialised in Carabidae and water beetles in particular his interests were widespread. He collaborated with Norman Joy in the preparation of his Handbook, 1932, acted as advisor on Coleoptera to the AES of which he was an active member, and exchanged specimens widely with other collectors. Between 1957 and his death he joined several collecting forays to the Alps and Pyrenees, and subsequently exhibited specimens taken at AES exhibitions. He published a number of notes in the EMM. and in the Bulletin of the AES mostly recording captures of beetles in Sussex and southern England, or interesting specimens sent to him by correspondents. One of the most important was 'The species of Plateumaris and Donacia in Sussex' in EMM., 90, 1954, p.80. Cribb bequeathed three cabinets of beetles collected during his lifetime to the Booth Museum, Brighton and there are also specimens in the collection K.C.Lewis. On Cribb’s work as a sculptor see many references in F. MacCarthy, Eric Gill, 1989. (I am grateful to his son Peter Cribb, the well known Lepidopterist, for information) (MD 4/02, 12/06)
Dates
16 January 1898 - 6 November 1967