Robert Francis Scharff
Robert Francis Scharff (1858, Leeds -1934, Worthing) was an Irish zoologist.
Scharff's parents were German. He studied at the universities of Edinburgh, London and Heidelberg and at the St. Andrews Biological Station in New Brunswick and Stazione Zoologica in Naples. He was a curator in the Natural History Division of the National Museum of Ireland from 1887-1921. In the years after 1916 and the resignation of George Noble Plunkett as Director of the National Museum of Ireland Scharff became the acting Director until his retirement in 1922.
Scharff is best known for two books on biogeography, The history of the European fauna (London,W. Scott,1899) and The Distribution and Origin of Life in America (1911 Constable and Co., London)
Scharff was twice married, his first wife Alice died during the 1918 flu pandemic. In 1920 he married Jane Stephens, (1879-1959) Assistant Naturalist at the National Museum. She was a specialist in Porifera and Cnidaria with both Scharff and Stephens taking part in the Royal Irish Academy Clare Island Survey. They had one child, a daughter, together. Scharff died in Worthing in 1934.
References
External links
- Habitas Partial bibliography of both Scharff and Stephens]