Abstract
MAJOR E. E. AUSTEN retired from the keepership of the Department of Entomology in the British Museum (Natural History) on October 19, when he reached the age limit of sixty-five years. After an education at Rugby School and the University of Heidelberg, he entered the service of the Trustees of the British Museum as second class assistant (now termed assistant keeper) in what was then the entomological section of the Department of Zoology on October 30, 1899, and was placed in charge of the Diptora; to this group of insects he has devoted his scientific life. The entomological section was separated from the Department of Zoology in 1913 with Dr. C. J. Gahan as the first keeper; on his retirement, Major Austen succeeded to the office on January 21, 1927. His last official act was to bring out tho long wanted number on Clothes Moths and House Moths in the Natural History Museum economic series. As tho blood-sucking flies are in the group studied by him, Vie has been brought closely into contact with tropical medicine. Ho was with the first expedition of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine to Sierra Leone in 1899, and has been a member of the council as well as vice-president of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. He has served on many committees including those on sleeping sickness, tsetse fly, and locust. He is a member of the committee of management of tho Imperial Institute of Entomology. In early days a volunteer and later a territorial, he saw service in the Boor War and in the European War; in the latter he was twice mentioned in dispatches and was awarded the Distinguished Service Order. Mr. N. D. Riley succeeds Major Austen as keeper, and Mr. K. G. Blair has been appointed deputy keeper in the Department of Entomology of the Museum.
Article PDF
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Major E. E. Austen. Nature 130, 604 (1932). https://doi.org/10.1038/130604a0
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/130604a0