Mem. Nat. Mus. Vict., IS, 1947 



OBITUARY. 



James Andrew Kershaw, Director, National Museum of Victoria, 



1929-1931. 



The passing of James Andrew Kershaw, Director of the Nat- 

 ional Museum of Victoria from 1929 to 1931, not only terminates 

 the long association of the Kershaw family with science in Vic- 

 toria, but breaks a link with such pioneers as Sir Frederick 

 McCoy, Baron von Mueller, Dr. Alfred Howitt, and others who 

 laid the foundations for modern scientific research in Australia. 



James Kershaw was born on April 13, 1866, at Fitzroy, Vic- 

 toria, educated at the Alma Road State School and the Grammar 

 School, East Street, St. Kilda, and appointed to the staff of the 

 National Museum by Sir Frederick McCoy on October 1, 1883. 

 His father, William Kershaw, had been a member of the staff 

 since 1856, when he and Henry Edwards, the well-known actor, 

 were appointed as Lepidopterists. The period of young Ker- 

 shaw's training coincided with the scientific revival of the 

 dosing decades of last century — a revival brought about by the 

 publicaion by McCoy of his Prodromus of the Zoology of Victoria. 

 That period might well be called the Taxonomic Period, for, during 

 it, scientific work consisted chiefly of the description of genera 

 and species. 



After the death of McCoy in May 1899, the Museum was moved 

 from the University grounds to its present site, and Sir W. 

 Baldwin Spencer became its Honorary Director. He resigned in 

 1929, and James Kershaw then became Director. On his retirement 

 in 1931, Kershaw was appointed Honorary Curator in Zoology, 

 interesting himself in all matters connected with Zoology, and par- 

 ticularly in the groups of which he was a specialist. He retained 

 this interest to the end — only a few minutes before he died on Feb- 

 ruary 16, 1946, he had been discussing with one of the younger 

 school a matter of common scientific interest. 



He was keenly interested in the Field Naturalists' Club of Vic- 

 toria, and his papers in its journal cover a wide range of subjects. 

 He took a prominent part in securing the permanent reservation 

 of Wilson's Promontory as a National Park and a sanctuary for 

 the preservation of the native fauna and flora. He was Honorary 

 Secretary to the Committee of Management continuously from 

 its inception in 1908 to 1946. He became a member of the Royal 

 Society of Victoria in 1900, a member of its Council in 1902, and 



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