Well known naturalist and conchologist who has been described as the 'Prince of Collectors'. Cuming was born at West Alvington in Devon, and emigrated to Chile at the age of 28. He began collecting shells in the South Pacific region in 1821, returning to England in 1831. Between 1836 and 1839 he visited the Philippines. F.W. Hope, 'Characters and descriptions of several new genera and species of Coleopterous insects', Trans.ZSL, 1, 1835, p.106, records that he named Prionus cumingii after Cuming who obtained it at Concepcion and Valparaiso on the trunks of trees. Hope went on to say of Cuming: 'the success of his indefatigable exertions in various branches of Natural History, is well known by the extensive and interesting collections which he has recently brought to this country'. These included 82,992 shells purchased by the Natural History Museum in 1866 for £6,000. (Thanks to Andrew Duff for pointing out to me the Wikipedia entry) There is also an entry by S. Peter Dance in Oxford Dictionary of National Biuography (MD 4/02, 11/09, 2/20)