Edward Hearle Rodd

Edward Hearle Rodd (1810–1880), ornithologist, born at the vicarage of St Just in Roseland, Cornwall, United Kingdom on 17 March 1810, was the third son of Edward Rodd, D.D. (1768–1842), by his wife Harriet, daughter of Charles Rashleigh, of Duporth, Cornwall.^[1]

Life

He was educated at Ottery St Mary school, and trained for the law, being admitted to practise as a solicitor in Trinity term 1832. Early in the following year he settled at Penzance, where he entered into partnership with George Dennis John. On John's death Rodd was joined by one Drake, and after the latter's death the firm became Rodd & Cornish. Rodd retired about 1878. He had also held many official posts in the town. He was town clerk from 1847, clerk to the local board from 1849, clerk to the Board of Guardians from the passing of the Poor Law Amendment Act 1834, and superintendent registrar, besides being head distributor of stamps in Cornwall from 1844 to 1867. He died unmarried at Penzance on 25 January 1880, and was buried in the cemetery there.^[1]

Ornithological studies

Rodd was an ardent ornithologist, and especially interested in the question of migration. He studied minutely the avifauna of Cornwall, and it was entirely due to his exertion that many a rare bird was rescued from oblivion, while several species were added by him to the list of British birds. He contributed upwards of twenty papers on ornithological matters to The Zoologist, the Ibis, and the Journal of the Royal Institution of Cornwall from 1843 onwards.^[1] His collection of at least forty-five cases with 270 specimens, mostly from Cornwall, passed to his nephew Francis R Rodd, at Trebartha Hall, Launceston. All were lost when Trebartha was destroyed by fire in 1949.^[1][2]

Books

• A List of British Birds as a Guide to the Ornithology of Cornwall, particularly in the Land's End district: with remarks on the capture, habits, &c., of some of the rarer species, & species new to Britain and an appendix with a list of some of the rarer and interesting British birds observed at Scilly since 1843. London: Simpkin, Marshall; Penzance: W. Cornish, 1864; 2nd edit. 1869
• The Birds of Cornwall and the Scilly Islands; edited by James Harting, London: Trübner, 1880 (includes "brief memoir")

References

Sources

• Memoir by J E Harting, prefixed to Birds of Cornwall
• Boase and Courtney's Bibliotheca Cornubiensis; ii. p. 580, and Suppl. p. 1327
• Information kindly supplied by his nephew, F R Rodd, of Trebartha Hall, Launceston
• British Museum Catalogue
• Royal Society Catalogue

Attribution

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: "Rodd, Edward Hearle". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.