Stanley Smyth Flower OBE (1871 - 1946)

Born 1 Aug 1871 in Holborn, Middlesex, England, United Kingdom

Ancestors

Husband of Sibylla Maria Peckham (Wallace) Flower — married 30 Sep 1896 in Worplesdon, Surrey, England

Descendants

Died 3 Feb 1946 at age 74 in Tring, Hertfordshire, England, United Kingdom

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Biography

Stanley Flower OBE is Notable.

Major Stanley Smyth Flower OBE FLS FZS (1 August 1871 – 3 February 1946) was an English army officer, science advisor, administrator, zoologist and conservationist. Second son of Sir William Henry Flower FRS and his wife Georgiana Rosetta, daughter of Admiral William Henry Smyth FRS, he was born on 1 August 1871 in the Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons, of which his father was then Curator. Among his first cousins were Sir Archibald Dennis Flower, head of the family brewery, the soldier Nevill Smyth VC, and Robert Stephenson Baden-Powell, founder of the Boy Scout movement.

After attending Wellington College, Berkshire, he studied at King's College London and joined the Artists' Rifles. In 1890 he obtained a regular commission in the Northumberland Fusiliers. In 1896 the government of Siam was looking for a scientific advisor to manage the collections in the Royal Museum and he was awarded the post. In 1898 the government of Egypt under Lord Cromer wanted to appoint a Director of the Zoological Gardens at Giza and he gained the post, which he held until his retirement. Establishing and enforcing game laws in Egypt and Sudan, he was active both in identification of unknown species and conservation of known species at risk. To him is ascribed the preservation of the egret, threatened with extinction for its plumes.

Recalled to the British Army in 1914 he was involved in the Egyptian Camel Transport Corps, carrying supplies for the British Empire forces fighting in the Sinai and Palestine Campaign. When the Egyptian Revolution of 1919 broke out, he acted as an Inspector of the Interior and Political Officer maintaining order in Giza.

In 1924, his health impaired, he resigned his post and settled near Tring, where he could pursue his studies at the Walter Rothschild Zoological Museum. During his retirement, he visited many zoos around the world and wrote many papers on mammals, birds, reptiles, fishes and amphibians of Egypt as well as on animal longevity. He was vice-president of the Zoological Society of London from 1927 to 1929 and chair of the British Ornithologists' Club from 1930 to 1933.

In 1896 he married Sibylla Maria Peckham Wallace, known as Sybil (1876–1938), and they had two sons and two daughters. After Sybil's death, in 1939 he married Charlotte Dorothea Rose Stewart (1889–1981). He died at Tring on 3 February 1946, being buried in the town cemetery.

Sources

Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Smyth_Flower