BR. J. INI NAT. HIST., 13: 2001 



OBITUARY 



Brian Robert Baker 



Brian Baker died suddenly, but peacefully, on the 13th Fcbruarv 2000. a tragedy 

 for his family and a sad loss to British entomology to which Brian had given so much 

 throughout his life. 



Born on the 1 3th July 1 924, Brian was a resident of Reading in Berkshire and there 

 was probably nobody who knew better the highways and byways, the woods, reed 

 beds and the chalk downs of this varied and interesting county. Brian would recall 

 how he learnt much of his field craft knowledge from Conrad Runge and other local 

 entomologists during his teenage years, knowledge which he was to pass on so 

 willingly to others in the years that followed. 



In 1942, Brian joined the Royal Air Force and spent part of his service in the Far 

 East, in the immediate post-war period. There he no doubt studied the local flora and 

 fauna but it was the British Lepidoptera which was to be his main lifetime interest. 

 On leaving the RAF Brian joined the staff at Reading Museum & Art Gallery, 

 becoming their deputy director in 1956. Whilst at the museum he studied at Birkbeck 

 College, University of London, and obtained a degree in Natural Science in 1956. In 

 the following year he became a Fellow of the Royal Entomological Society and in 

 1963 he was awarded a Fellowship of the Museums Association. Brian retired 

 in 1987 but this did not see the end of his association with the museum which he 

 continued to visit frequently, and to take a great interest in its long renovation and 

 the housing and display of the important collections that it contains. 



Brian joined the British Entomological & Natural History Society in 1952 and 

 regularly attended their meetings and annual exhibitions during the years that 

 followed. He was elected President of the Society in 1983. Brian was also a long- 

 standing member of the Reading & District Natural History Society which he joined 

 in 1936, at the tender age of twelve, and of which he remained an active and 

 influential member for the rest of his life. Brian was twice President of that society, 

 including during their centenary year, besides being their entomological recorder for 

 many years, indoor meetings secretary and regular supporter of the annual "mothing 

 night" when he would introduce botanists, coleopterists and those with a general 

 interest in natural history to the delights of seeing and recording moths in one of his 

 favourite localities. In all his associations with these societies it is so apparent thai 

 Brian was more than willing to give his time and energy back to an interest from 

 which he clearly gained so much personal satisfaction during his life. 



In 1977 Brian started collecting together the records of the Lepidoptera of 

 Berkshire which were eventually to be published as The Butterflies and Mollis of 

 Berkshire in 1994. Not for Brian the dubious pleasures of the word processor, he 

 laboured long and hard on this project using a card index and typewriter to produce 

 the text for the first comprehensive county list since The Victoria County History of 

 Berkshire of 1906. Each record was carefully checked for accuracy and to ensure that 

 it properly fell within the boundaries of vice-county 22. Brian was an acknowledged 

 expert on the Sesiidae (clearwing moths) and it was no surprise when he was asked to 

 write a chapter of The Moths and Butterflies of Great Britain and Ireland, describing 

 the life histories of these fascinating moths. 



Brian was a founder member of the Berkshire. Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire 

 Naturalists Trust (BBONT). In these days, when such county organisations are an 

 accepted part of the conservation scene, it is perhaps difficult to appreciate that they 



