Brian John Marples
{{Short description|New Zealand zoologist (1907–1997)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=July 2019}}
File:Otago University Zoology Dept • Marples leaving Aug 1967 (cropped).jpg
Brian John Marples FRSNZ (31 March 1907 – 1997) was a British zoologist who spent most of his career in New Zealand.
Early years
Marples was born in Hessle, Yorkshire, in north-eastern England. He was educated at Kingsmead in Cheshire, and St Bees in Cumberland before attending Exeter College at Oxford University. He graduated as a BA from Oxford in 1929, subsequently obtaining a MSc from the University of Manchester in 1931, and MA from Oxford in 1933. He married Mary (Molly) Joyce Ransford in 1931.{{cite web |url=http://www.royalsociety.org.nz/publications/reports/yearbooks/year2000/obituaries/brian-marples/ |title=Brian John Marples BA MA MSc FRSNZ FAZ |accessdate=2014-05-28 |work=2000 Academy Yearbook |first=Ewan |last=Fordyce |publisher=Royal Society of New Zealand |year=2012 }}
Career
From 1930 to 1936 Marples worked as Assistant Lecturer in Zoology at Manchester. In 1937 he went to New Zealand to become Professor of Zoology at the University of Otago, a position he served in for 30 years before retiring in 1967 to Woodstock, near Oxford in southern England. He published numerous papers on a wide variety of zoological topics, especially in the fields of ornithology, arachnology and fossil penguins. He was also a cofounder of the Ornithological Society of New Zealand.{{cite journal |author=Westerskov, Kaj E. |year=1999 |title=Obituary: Professor Brian John Marples |journal=Notornis |volume=46 |issue=4 |pages=503–506 |url=http://notornis.osnz.org.nz/system/files/Notornis_46_4_503.pdf |access-date=28 May 2014 |archive-date=20 May 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170520133117/http://notornis.osnz.org.nz/system/files/Notornis_46_4_503.pdf |url-status=dead }}
Honours
- 1953 – Fellow, Royal Society of New Zealand
- 1980 – Honorary Member, Ornithological Society of New Zealand
References
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Category:20th-century British zoologists
Category:New Zealand ornithologists
Category:New Zealand paleontologists
Category:Alumni of Exeter College, Oxford
Category:Academics of the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology
Category:Academic staff of the University of Otago
Category:British arachnologists
Category:Scientists from Dunedin
Category:20th-century New Zealand zoologists
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