Sheffield Airey Neave

Sheffield Airey Neave CMG OBE MRCP^[1] (20 April 1879 - 31 December 1961) was a British naturalist and entomologist. Neave was the grandson of Sheffield Neave, a governor of the Bank of England and he was the father of Airey Neave.

Early life

Born in Kensworth in Hertfordshire on 20 April 1879, he was the son of Sheffield Henry. M. Neave and his wife Gertrude Charlotte Margaret (née Airey). He was educated at Eton and Magdalen College, Oxford.^[2]

Africa

His first work was research into the problems related to the Tsete fly and the study of African animal life. He was part of the Geodetic Survey of Northern Rhodesia between 1904 and 1904. Between 1906 and 1906 he was part of the Katanga Sleeping Sickness Commission and then from 1909 the Entomological Research Committee of Tropical Africa.^[2]

Entomologist

Neave returned to the United Kingdom in 1913 and was appointed assistant director of the Imperial Institute of Entomology, becoming director from 1942 to 1946. He was awarded for his contribution to Entomology with an appointment as an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1933 and a Companion of the Order of St. Michael and St. George in 1941.^[2]

Retirement

Neave retired in 1946 to garden and farm in Essex but he carried on as honorary secretary of the Zoological Society of London until 1952, it was a position he had held since 1942.^[2]

Family life

Neave married twice, firstly to Dorothy Middleton and they had two sons and three daughters, the eldest is Airey Neave later a Member of Parliament. Dorothy died in 1942 and Neave married secondly to Mary Hodges in 1946 in London.^[2]

References

• ‘NEAVE, Sheffield Airey’, Who Was Who, A & C Black, 1920–2008; online edn, Oxford University Press, Dec 2007 [http://www.ukwhoswho.com/view/article/oupww/whowaswho/U57829, accessed 21 May 2011]
• Gilbert, P. (2010). "Sheffield Airey NEAVE: Administrator, editor, systematist". Archives of Natural History 37: 171–172. doi:10.3366/E0260954109001752.