British Museum (Natural History): Department of Zoology: Mammals Section: Correspondence

This series consists of the correspondence of Michael Rogers Oldfield Thomas, Curator of Mammals. Letters deal with the acquisition, loan and exchange of specimens, enquiries from both professional and amateur mammalogists, and letters concerned with Thomas' taxonomic researches. Many of the letters are from explorers and big-game hunters, some of whom were financed out of Thomas' own pocket.

Series held at The Natural History Museum are catalogued more fully in its online catalogue (reference DF ZOO/232). Online descriptions of some individual records can also be viewed on Discovery, see DF 232.

Letters are arranged in alphabetical order within each year.

Correspondence of subsequent heads of the Mammal Section are held in the Section archive room. Thomas' mammal notebooks are held in Zoology Library manuscripts and many of his letters are held in DF 200

Topics

Hunting

Museums and galleries

Michael Rogers Oldfield Thomas was Curator of Mammals from 1879 until his retirement in 1923. Thomas grew up in South Africa, returning to England for schooling at Haileybury. He secured a clerkship in the Secretaries office at the British Museum in 1876, and transferred to the Zoology Department as an Assistant in 1878. After a short period working with the invertebrates, he was given charge of the mammal collection. In 1895 his post became part of the Vertebrate Section of the Department, under R Bowdler Sharpe, and in 1922 the Mammal Section was set up. Thomas continued to work regularly at the Museum until shortly before his death in 1929.