Dr Roy Crowson, naturalist and evolutionary biologist;
born November 22, 1914, died May 13, 1999
ROY Crowson was a well-known figure in the West End of Glasgow. Many who did not know him knew of him, as he waited at the bus stop to travel back and forward to the Zoology Department of Glasgow University, where he pursued his lifelong interest in beetles.
It was in the dedication of his life's work The Biology of the Coleoptera that Roy quoted G K Chesterton and in so doing gave a unique insight of himself: . . . ''this is practically the claim of all egoism which thinks self-assertion can obtain knowledge. A beetle may or may not be inferior to a man - that matter awaits demonstration; but if he were inferior to a man by 10,000 fathoms, the fact remains that there is probably a beetle view of things of which a man is entirely ignorant.'' Roy spent his life enlightening this ignorance.
Born just as the First World War was breaking out, a native of Hadlow in Kent, it was a childhood gift by his aunt of a book on beetles and Darwin's Origin of the Species which laid the foundation, not only of his future career but of his future life. After studying as a scholarship pupil at Judd School Tunbridge and graduating from Imperial College London, his professional life began as assistant curator in Tunbridge Wells Museum followed by war service in the RAF before joining the Zoology Department at the University of Glasgow where the extensive collections of the Hunterian Museum were an irresistible magnet.
At the time an undergraduate called Betty Campbell was studying Entomology. Roy's enthusiasm for the specimen which Betty had taken to him was equalled only by his enthusiasm for Betty, to whom he was married for 45 years, and in whom he found a life-long partner, companion, and friend who shared his enthusiasms and interests, yet was not overwhelmed by them. The papers prepared in honour of Roy's 80th birthday tell of an international reputation as an acknowledged expert on beetles. His system of classification of Coleoptera was adopted by the British Museum and similar institutions worldwide. His travels had taken him from Harvard to Moscow, to the Antipodes to South Africa - a visit which he undertook against the advice of virtually everyone including his doctor and from which he returned rejuvenated!
Roy was an eccentric, English, enthusiastic, entomologist. He held strong views and could be, in the words of a colleague with whom he'd crossed swords, an ''argumentative cuss''. Time spent away from the microscope was spent in reading poetry and philosophy, or a good novel. He loved the theatre and music and he was an accomplished pianist. Once, on reaching the crescendo of a duet, a beetle fell from the piano. To anyone else this would have been unremarkable but I now know that the beetle which was eating the felt on the piano hammers was Niptus hololucas.
One may have to say that this was less important than his discovery of several species of beetles associated exclusively with ancient primary woodland. He was established as an active consultant with the Nature Conservancy Council and was a life member of the
Scottish Wildlife Trust.
Driving Roy beyond the statutory retiring age was, I think, his self-stated belief that ''coleoptera provide excellent illustrations for almost every general evolutionary principle and future studies may lead to formulations of new generalisations''. Thus, torchlight expeditions to the trees in Dawsholm Park to pick beetles from Pleuroccocus were undertaken, because Roy had the idea that the evolution of beetles was associated with their diet. Undaunted when he became slower and more infirm, it was Betty who was dispatched on these specimen searches.
I could say more but I won't. There are too many memories, too many insights. My words matter little compared to Roy's life's work and I want to leave the last word to Roy. Quoting Neitsche, he used to say: ''I followed after the living thing, I went upon the broadest and narrowest paths that I might know its nature.''
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