J.A. Moy-Thomas

James Alan Moy-Thomas (September 12 1908 - 29 February 1944) was a British palaeontological ichthyologist.

Son of Alan Moy-Thomas and his wife Gertrude, he was born in London. He had a younger brother Edward and an older sister Joan Caroline. He was educated at Eton and at Christ Church, Oxford, where he graduated with a first class degree in zoology in 1930[1]

He authored numerous papers on palaeontological ichthyology.

In 1933 he married Joy Mitchell in Wharfedale, Yorkshire.

In 1941 he was granted a Commission in the Special Duties Branch (i.e. intelligence) of the RAF.[2] His service number was 66643. He died in a motor vehicle accident in 1944[3] and was buried in Cambridge.[4] An obituary was published in The Times,[5] and another by Edwin Stephen Goodrich was published in Nature[6]

The genus Jamoytius is named after him.

His brother Edward died later that year on active service in the Netherlands during Operation Market Garden[7]

References

  1. ↑ http://www.chch.ox.ac.uk/cathedral/memorials/WW2/james-moythomas
  2. ↑ https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/35190/page/3387
  3. ↑ Deaths on Active Service. The Times March 4, 1944; pg. 1; Issue 49796.
  4. ↑ http://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/2651389/MOY-THOMAS,%20JAMES%20ALAN
  5. ↑ The Times 4 March 1944: page 7.
  6. ↑ http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v153/n3884/abs/153427a0.html
  7. ↑ http://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/2661297/MOY-THOMAS,%20EDWARD%20ALFRED