Sarawak’s own cockroach-man

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Robert WC Shelford

Robert WC Shelford

THIS year marks the centenary of the first publication of Robert Walter Campbell Shelford’s superb book entitled, ‘A Naturalist in Borneo’. Shelford was born in Singapore in 1872 and died at the early age of 39, in 1912, in Margate, England. In those relatively few years of his life, even whilst experiencing a physical handicap, he accomplished more than most of us may achieve in living to twice his age.

It may seem strange that his book was published four years after his death. In his later years, he struggled, in his usual busy fashion, to rewrite chapters and to compile his book.

Upon his death, Edward Poulton, the Hope Professor of Zoology and Fellow of Jesus College, Oxford University, an expert in evolutionary biology, edited Shelford’s notes and prompted this publication. History repeats itself, for today the Hope Professor of Zoology at Oxford is Charles Godfray, who is also a Fellow of Jesus College which, coincidentally, is my alma mater.

At only three years old, Shelford contracted a tubercular disease in a hip joint. This was the result of a fall down a staircase and resulted in him lying on his back until the age of 10 when he underwent traumatic surgery. Three years later, he left home to live with a private tutor. Lame in one leg, he was denied sports activities but later in life developed a passion for golf. It was during Shelford’s childhood that, according to Poulton, “his mind was turned to observation and he became a naturalist”.

He studied at King’s College, London and then completed the Natural Sciences Tripos degree at Emmanuel College, Cambridge in 1895. The latter provided a solid foundation for his zoological and ethological work in the following years.

Upon graduation, he took up the post as Demonstrator in Biology at Yorkshire College in Leeds before gaining the illustrious appointment as the curator of Sarawak Museum in Kuching in July 1897.

This post he held for nearly eight years, from the early age of 25 until Feb 2, 1905.

In Kuching he availed himself of every opportunity to study tropical animals and of visiting various native people. He made expeditions to Penrissen and Mount Prang, Mount Matang, Santubong and the two Satang islands as well as many upriver visits.

His main interest lay in the mimicry of insects and their predators. The term mimicry only entered the realms of biology in 1861 and refers to a close resemblance in the colourings of one creature to a different one, which makes some insects appear unpalatable or ferocious to their predators.

Photo shows the front cover of Shelford’s book.

Photo shows the front cover of Shelford’s book.

Interestingly, 25 per cent of the 319 pages of his book are devoted to insects with one chapter devoted to cockroaches and another to mimicry. He was, indeed, a vigilant observer of animal behaviour and not just a collector. His documentation bears witness to this.

In the introduction to his book, Shelford acknowledged “the delights of this appointment” as curator of the Sarawak Museum and goes on to say, “the pay was adequate: I was granted abundant opportunities to visit other parts of the state for making collections and there was an entire absence of officialdom”.

In establishing the museum in 1891, Rajah Sir Charles Brooke had insisted that it be confined to the fauna, flora, and ethnology of Borneo. As its fourth curator, Shelford saw this museum as fulfilling a triple function in providing for local people a constant source of interest, increasing the knowledge of flora, fauna and ethnography of the state and as a centre for scientific research.

Whilst in Kuching, between 1899 and 1901, he despatched many insect, bird and animal specimens to both Zoology Departments at Oxford and Cambridge universities. For some of his leisure time he was involved in regular correspondence with eminent zoologists in the UK. One day he fell from a rickshaw and the resulting wound took a long time to heal, albeit with little complaint from himself. This may have prompted him to return to the UK, together with his ambition to gain a university post, where he could put his acquired knowledge of Borneo to good use. He had already written several papers in learned journals.

He wrote to Professor Poulton in the hope of gaining a post at the Oxford Department of Zoology even without a salary, for there was little money available at that time to employ extra staff. As luck had it, one wealthy Oxford college gave the university an annual grant for the employment of other departmental staff. Thus Robert Shelford was appointed, in 1905, as assistant curator at the Hope department of Zoology at the Oxford Museum and three years later he married a vicar’s daughter.

As assistant curator at the Hope Collection, he specialised in the classification of cockroaches (identifying 44 new genera and 326 new species) as well as stick insects. Seventeen species of cockroach are named after him as well as five new species of South American stick insect which he identified.

There is no doubt that his contribution to zoological research was none other than excellent and the last paper he published in 1912 on cockroaches and their mimicry was well acclaimed. Sadly, in 1909 he accidentally slipped down and suffered a reoccurrence of his former tubercular condition, causing him to leave Oxford and move to the seaside town of Margate where he anticipated that the bracing sea air and slightly milder climate would better suit his condition. Although some distance from Oxford, he continued to write up his Bornean notes, drafting many chapters for his book and compiling his photographic collection and field sketches.

Shelford’s innate modesty and natural self-deprecation is best illustrated in his introduction to his book, “A comprehensive work dealing with the realm of Nature in Borneo is not the labour of one man but of many, not the outcome of observation extending over seven years but over seventy times seven and this book pretends to be little more than the presentation of the facts and of observations gleaned by the writer during seven years’ sojourn in Sarawak.” He continues to trust that the reader can taste one-tenth of the pleasure which he experienced in making his observations and recording them. If they can achieve that, he wrote, “I shall feel well rewarded.” Sadly, as a result of his illness Shelford died in 1912 and never saw his book in print.

It was appropriate that Edward Poulton, who had regularly corresponded with Alfred Russel Wallace, edited Shelford’s book and saw it through to publication. I am the fortunate owner of the 1916 first edition in hardback form. Subsequently, in 1985, Oxford University Press reprinted this book as a paperback. Shelford, like Alfred Wallace before him, brought the natural world of Borneo and especially that of Sarawak to the eyes of the world in his enjoyable and easily readable book.

Photo shows the Sarawak Museum before the 1911 extension.

Photo shows the Sarawak Museum before the 1911 extension.