Wyatt, Colin William fforde (1909 - 1975)

Summary

Colin Wyatt was a butterfly collector and a renowned skier and mountaineer. His skills in the latter proved useful in collecting in inaccessible places. In 1936 Wyatt came to Australia. While in Australia he became acquainted with entomologists including Athol Waterhouse and John Le Souef. During WWII Wyatt was employed with a government camouflage unit, working to ensure airstrips and radar stations were concealed from the air. This work included a posting to Papua New Guinea and some of the off-shore islands. In Australian entomological circles Wyatt is notorious for having stolen over 3,000 butterfly specimens (including types) from the Australian Museum (over 1,600 specimens), the National Museum of Victoria (NMV)and the South Australian Museum at the end of WWII, and of falsifying labels to cover his theft. The theft was accidentally discovered by Alex Burns, entomologist at the NMV, and was followed by an international campaign to find the culprit, determine the extent of the theft, and repatriate the specimens. Wyatt was convicted and fined a mere £100. The specimens were mostly recovered and repatriated: the team of entomologists tasked with returning the specimens to their respective collections decided that all of these specimens would have a yellow label stating "Passed through C.W. Wyatt Theft Coll. 1946-1947".

Details

Chronology

1936

Life event - Arrived in Australia

Related entries

Published resources

Journal Articles

• Tennent, W. John, Müller, Chris J., Hausmann, Axel and Hinkley, Simon, 'From München to Melbourne: repatriation of a butterfly holotype stolen by the infamous Colin Wyatt almost 80 years ago', Australian entomologist, 51 (1) (2024), 43-55, https://search.informit.org/doi/epdf/10.3316/informit.T2024050800007801164279613. Details