2 CERNOHORSKY 
RESEARCH ACTIVITIES AND FIELD WORK 
Between 1926-1937 Baden conducted a comprehensive survey of animal 
communities of the sea bottom of the Waitemata and Manukau Harbours and results 
were published in the year the survey was completed (Powell, 1937d). At about the 
same time he worked with Prof. J.A. Bartrum on fossil molluscs from Kaawa Creek 
and Oneroa, Waiheke Island. Their results were published under their joint 
authorship in the TNZI (Bartrum & Powell, 1928 and Powell & Bartrum, 1929), In 
1932 he participated in deep-sea investigations around New Zealand in the Royal 
research ship “Discovery II”. This resulted in the publication of Mollusca in the 
“Discovery Reports” (1937e). In 1952 he took part in the deep-sea investigation of the 
Kermadec Trench on the Danish research ship “Galathea”. In 1956 he was invited to 
take part in the zoological research expedition “Gloria Maris” to west Irian under the 
auspices of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. He also collected widely 
throughout the North Island of New Zealand and also published on New Zealand 
molluscs in popular publications (1937f, 1947d, 1976c and 1979). Baden served on the 
standing committee on oceanography of the Pacific Science Association and he also 
was a member of the New Zealand Oceanographic Committee. In 1953 he convened 
the UNESCO sponsored eighth Pacific Science Congress at Manila, Philippines. 
Baden’s primary research interest were the New Zealand Mollusca but he also 
specialised in molluscs of the Antarctic and Subantarctic Islands and the families 
Turridae and Speightiidae and later on the Patellidae. In his Turridae project he 
received generous financial support from Mr Dixon Stroud, U.S.A., which enabled 
him to visit major Museums in Europe and the U.S.A. to study type specimens and 
turrid material towards his later monographs on the family. It is a matter for regret 
that only a small part of his extensive Turridae research has been published to date. 
On moving to the new quarters of the Auckland War Memorial Museum building 
in the Domain, Baden Powell played an important role in the development of the 
displays and the housing of the Museum’s shell collections. In 1930 he founded the 
Auckland Museum Conchology section with a membership of 7 enthusiastic 
schoolboys, among them the late Sir Charles Fleming. The Museum’s Conchology 
section has a current membership of about 150. 
HONOURS 
His malacological research in New Zealand has been duly recognised during his 
lifetime. In 1940 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand, and in 
1947 he received the Royal Society of New Zealand Hector memorial medal and prize 
for researches in Mollusca. In 1956 he was awarded an Honorary D.Sc. degree from 
the University of Auckland and in the New Year’s honours list for 1981 he was 
awarded the CBE for his contributions to marine science. He was a Fellow of the Art 
Galleries and Museums Association of New Zealand, an Honorary Life Member of 
the Malacological Section of the Royal Society of South Australia, a Life Member of 
the Malacological Society of Australia and an Honorary Life Member of the 
Auckland Institute and Museum. 
