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Bell-Marley, Harold Walter (1872/3-c1945)

Fisheries Officer in Natal but also enthusiastic insect collector.

Chronology

Profession was Principal Fisheries Officer (C. Quickelberg, pers. comm.).

"The death of H.W. Bell-Marley in Durban, Natal, has passed unnoticed probably because he was not a member of any scientific society and disliked all forms of publicity. Nevertheless it is no exaggeration to say that he was one of the greatest workers on the South African insect fauna, and has done more than anyone to collect and send material to museums throughout the world. As a field worker he was unsurpassed and during the last fifty years he had collected continuously in almost every part of the country south of the Zambesi, sending his finds to museums in this country, in the United States and, before the war, in Germany.

My wife and I had the privilage of accompanying him during most of his collecting expeditions in the last five years of his life and feel that the annals of entomology should not be without a record of his passing and a tribute to his work.

Marley went to South Africa form Richmond, Surrey, at the time of the Boer War and later became Principal Fisheries Officer at Durban. Although insects, and especially beetles, were his main interest, his collection of South African birds' eggs, now in the Pretoria Museum, is regarded as one of the most complete ever formed in the country. He was the first to collect molluscs from the stomachs of deep sea fish; most of these were undescribed and were sent to the United States for examination. His work on South African beetles, in association with W.L. Distant, C.N. Barker, and others, extended over more than forty years and although he never wrote on entomology himself he supplied the material for a wealth of published data and his labels will be found in South African insects in many major museum in this and other countries.

For many years Marley held a permit to collect in the vast native reserves of Northern Zululand and he spent about six weeks every season living with the natives in the Ubombo area and collecting between there and Lake Sibayi on the coast. Very few entomologists have worked in this part of the country because of the absence of roads, the unhealthy nature and inaccessibility of much of the terrain, and the lack of European habitations. Marley considered this one of the most prolific insect areas in the world and obtained much undescribed material of a number of orders.

It was during his last visit to Northern Zululand by himself, and against his friends' advice, that he contracted blackwater fever and died soon after his return to Durban in January, 1945. He was aged about 73 and was unmarried." (Whicher, 1949)

South African Museum houses many H.W. Bell Marley insect specimens. Dates and localities from the ant collection include: 1914-1945 (various Natal localities including Durban; Krantz Kloof; Eshowe; Isipingo; St Lucia Lake. Also Wanetsi River [Mozambique] and Rehoboth [Namibia]).

There are also insect specimens collected by H.W. Bell Marley in the Transvaal Museum, Natal Museum and there are large numbers in the Durban Science Museum.

• Whicher, L.S. 1949. Obituary - H.W. Bell-Marley. Entomologist's Monthly Magazine 85: 49.

• Gunn & Codd (1981) p. 93.