Beryl Patricia Hall (née Woodhouse), 1917–2010

Abstract

Never formally on the staff of the Natural History Museum (NHM), Pat Hall nevertheless worked essentially full time from 1947 to 1971 curating its bird collections, undertaking collecting expeditions on its behalf and publishing an array of highly regarded collections-based research. Born into a wealthy middle-class family, she and her elder brother grew up in Epsom, Surrey. Her parents’ opposition thwarted her ambition to study mathematics at Cambridge and resulted in ‘an aimless 4 years at home’, during which she developed an interest in bird-watching. With war looming in 1939, she determined she must be ‘trained for something’ and signed up initially for the Women’s Legion and then for the local Air Raid Precautions, where she taught ambulance drivers. Soon after the outbreak of war, she became engaged to John Hall, a gunner lieutenant, who was promptly posted to the Middle East, whereupon Pat joined the Mechanical Transport Corps, volunteering to serve overseas as an ambulance driver. Initially posted to South Africa, in March 1941 she was transferred to Egypt, marrying John shortly after arriving there. She finished the war in Italy still driving ambulances, later writing up her war service in the amusing and light-hearted What a Way to Win a War (1978, Midas Books, Tunbridge Wells). The war-time skeleton staffing levels meant that the post-war NHM Bird Room in South Kensington had a huge backlog of specimen accession and curation. Pat’s time in Egypt had consolidated her interest in birds and, following the failure of her marriage in 1947, Pat accepted the post of full time Associate Scientific Worker (a voluntary position that, for her first 10 years, was recompensed at the rate of four shillings per hour up to a yearly maximum of no more than £100) in the Bird Room, turning down an offer of employment at the BBC in order to take it. The aptitude she showed for ornithological work was soon recognized and, in conjunction with her experience of Africa and mechanical skill with vehicles, meant that the Bird Room’s senior scientist, James Macdonald, invited her (at her own expense), to join a team on a collecting expedition to western South Africa and South West Africa beginning in late 1949. During 6 months in the field, the team collected 1300 specimens of nearly 200 species. For the next two decades, Pat’s time was largely divided between curatorial work in the Bird Room, collecting expeditions and collections-based research, the latter resulting in a flow of increasingly important systematic and distributional publications. In late 1953, Pat undertook an NHM-backed, but self-planned and largely self-funded, expedition to northern Bechuanaland (Botswana), where she stayed with Reay Smithers. Later, attending the 1st Pan-African Ornithological Congress in 1957 at Livingstone, in what was then called Southern Rhodesia, she determined to make the most of her time by organizing further substantial collecting expeditions both before and after the event. Both were successful in terms of specimens collected, but differed greatly in the enjoyment Pat could take from them. Before the congress, while staying with Reay Smithers, she collected about 1000 birds in southern and central Bechuanaland, notably the central Kalahari. After the congress, her main aim was Angola, whose birds were poorly represented in the NHM collection. For this she linked up with the renowned African bird collector John Williams and others. Socially this trip was not a success; Pat’s side of the story is colourfully outlined in A Hawk from a Handsaw (1993, privately published). Nevertheless, the 2 months in central and southwestern Angola yielded nearly 1000 specimens, including half a dozen new species for the NHM collection and over 20 new subspecies, which Pat wrote up with characteristic thoroughness (1960). Aside from a further short collecting trip to Ngamiland, northwest Bechuanaland, this was her final African expedition, though she continued to publish important papers on African groups such as pipits (1961) and francolins (1963). By far her largest work was the monumental, 8-year project An Atlas of Speciation in African Passerine Birds (1970); this was started with, and encouraged by, Reg Moreau, although he was too sick for much of the time to contribute greatly. Pat’s focus on Africa was interrupted by the generosity of an Australian, Major Harold Hall (no relation), who offered to fund a series of Bird Room collecting expeditions to Australia. With her desert experience, Pat was chosen to lead the third of the five planned expeditions, which would collect for 6 months in the arid interior of West and South Australia. Eventually, she found herself drawn into becoming co-ordinating editor for the write-up of all five Australian expeditions. The result was a 400-page report that was published in 1974. In the late 1960s the NHM made plans to move its bird research collections to Tring, a concept that Pat disagreed with strongly, both on scientific grounds and because she had no wish to move north of London. Instead she made plans to leave the museum and move from Epsom to the New Forest, which she did in late 1971, where she spent her retirement devoted to friends, dogs, horses and local village life. Despite her lack of formal qualifications, Pat’s increasingly high ornithological profile and growing publications resulted in recognition and honours. From 1955 to 1964 she served on the Committee of the British Ornithologists’ Club, being Vice-Chairman from 1959 to 1961. For the Union, she was Assistant Editor of Ibis from 1971 to 1973, was awarded their Union Medal in 1973 for eminent services to ornithology (see Ibis115: 305, 1973) and was Vice-President from 1973 to 1977. In 1963, the AOU elected her as one of its then few female Corresponding Fellows and in 1971 the South African Ornithological Society presented her with its Gill Memorial Medal in recognition of her work on African birds. She was invited to give a plenary lecture at the 15th IOC in the Hague in 1970 and the BTO’s Witherby Lecture in 1974. Somewhat against her better judgement, she accepted an invitation to be President of the 4th Pan African Ornithological Congress in 1976, which ended up causing her considerable stress, not least because of its late transfer from Kenya to the Seychelles for political reasons. Of all her honours and awards, however, the one that gave her most pleasure was that in 1971 of the Stamford Raffles Award of the Zoological Society of London, designed to recognize amateurs who had made distinguished contributions to zoology. This was presented to her by the Duke of Edinburgh (see photo). Throughout her career at the NHM, Pat had a particularly close working relationship with Derek Goodwin, who joined the museum’s staff at a similar time to her, retired after her and who died in 2008 (see Ibis152: 216–217, 2010). He also had served in North Africa during the war, and Pat admired him for the breadth of his knowledge of birds, derived from close study in field and aviary as well as within the museum collections. Above all, however, they shared a common love of nonsense verse, which they used to comment light-heartedly on ornithological research and to exorcise the not infrequent frustrations experienced in working at the museum. Their privately published Bird Room Ballads (1969, illustrated by Alfred Hughes) is a classic of its type, though only encompassing a small portion of their output.