Donald 'Don' Tozer was educated at Wyggeston School in Leicester, where he met Claude Henderson who was to become his life-long friend and collection companion. After leaving school and although suffering from the severe lameness contracted from polio in childhood, he was able to join his father as a painter and decorator, the profession in which he remained for the rest of his life. His mobility was improved by the use of a motorbike and bicycle.
Derek Lott, in his obituary of Tozer in Col, 2(3), 1994, 88, records that his interest in insects stretched to both Lepidoptera, of which he built up an outstanding collection, but particularly Coleoptera as a result of being inspired by S.O.Taylor during a visit to Leicester Museum with Henderson. His favoured collecting areas were mainly local: Leicestershire, Sherwood Forest and the Peterborough area, and he is recorded to have had an 'uncanny knack' of picking up rare species from roadside verges and hedges. He was a prolific breeder of beetles.
Tozer's first publication appears to have been a list of rare beetles captured in 1925 in Trans. Leicester Lit. and Phil. Soc.. and his first in the EMM, 'Rediscovery of Agrilus biguttatus F. in Sherwood Forest', 75, 1939, 88. This was followed by further papers in EMM from 1942 - 1947. Later he made important contributions to the Monks Wood list.
His collection of beetles, field notebooks and correspondence were donated to Leicester Museum by John Dacey, his nephew, and his Lepidoptera collection was sold at auction in 1993. Trevor Forsythe, 'The Donald Tozer Collection', in Col., 13(4), 2004, 148, noted that the collection consisted of 15,000 specimens, 'all British, and is housed at Barrow on Soar. A catalogue covering the collection has been compiled and the notebooks transcribed. Steele R.C. and Welch, R.C. [1973] record the presence of a MS file dated 1958 at Monks Wood relating to Tozer which contains 'much information concerning the period 1937-1953'. There are specimens bearing his name in the general collection at Manchester, and there is material from Sherwood in the general collection at Doncaster Museum; 33 specimens from the Midlands area are in the Glasgow Museum (1977-66) and K.C.Lewis tells me that there are specimens in his collection.
Tozer was an active member of the Amateur Entomologists Society from its foundation and served on the beetle identification panel up until his death. Lott records that 'he was a good-natured character and visitors were always greeted with a mug of tea and pleasant conversation... he always retained a character of independence and it was fortunate that he was able to remain living in his own house until his final illness.' (MD 12/04, 12/06, 1/22)