FORD, A.

Well known Bournemouth dealer. He started collecting as a young man when living at Hastings and moved to Bournemouth in 1904 at the time of setting up his business. H.J.Turner said of him ‘he was always an enthusiastic and tireless field worker and few had a wider and more varied knowledge of insects; his greatest interest, however, was always in Coleoptera, and he added many extremely rare and local species of that order to the Hampshire list’ (EMM., 79, 1943, p.155). Given the nature of his business it is not surprising that specimens taken by Ford are to be found in many collections. I have seen examples in the Museum at Kelvingrove, Glasgow; the general collection at Doncaster Museum; the Kauffmann collection of Cerambycidae at Manchester; and in Bolton Museum. Of the last Hancock and Pettit (1981) note that the museum acquired three separate collections: 1,500 specimens exotic worldwide; collected 1880s onward. Purchased from Ford for £5.00.(Accession no 163.06). Some specimens ex Swinhoe. Although Ford was a dealer these are said to be mainly his own specimens being disposed of due to ill health. ‘Material still typical dealers' specimens from variety of usually anonymous sources’. Mainly British material, from the New Forest in particular, but including some exotic Coleoptera, of c.1909 and including some Hymenoptera and Lepidoptera, in total amounting to 16,000 specimens many without locality data. A collection purchased for £29 (Accession numbers 95.67, 97.68) of British Coleoptera taken in the 1890s and amounting to 7,000 specimens. In Biological Curators Group Newsletter, 3, June 1976, Hancock refers to a collection of 5,753 specimens at Bolton purchased from Ford in 1897 which ‘do not now appear to exist’. This is presumably part of this third collection. Trevor James informs me that there is also Ford material in the D. G. Hall collection at Baldock, and Simon Hayhoe has informed me that there are Ford specimens in the Hall collection at Oldham. AES from 1937 until death. Member BENHS. Apart from the obituary by Turner from which a quotation is reproduced above, there is another, also by Turner, in ERJV., 55, 1943, p.70. (MD 12/02)