William Lutley Sclater:

Director of the South African Museum 1896 -1906
William Sclater was born in 1863 and was educated at Oxford, obtaining a First Class Honours in Natural Science in 1885. For a few years he was Deputy Superintendent of the Indian Museum in Calcutta and in 1896 he was appointed as the first Director of the South African Museum by the Board of Trustees.

Sclater's first tasks were to fill the new Museum building with fresh displays, to put the library into good order, to set up a proper registration system, to set up a framework for collecting and research and above all, to make the Museum known throughout the scientific world through the periodical publication, the Annals of the South African Museum.

The financial situation was easier during this decade than it had been in the past. In 1897 the new Museum was opened to the public and attracted a great deal of attention with 56 723 visitors in the first nine months. Since many visitors had been taught in Nederlands, Sclater started a system of bilingual labelling which was generally appreciated. Another innovation was Sunday afternoon opening which proved very successful. From 1903, school parties were given conducted tours.

Since the Museum had ceased to be a "one man show", Sclater began the departmental system, each unit being staffed by scientists. All departments helped in Museum display as well as in collecting and undertaking research. He was also the first to recognize the importance of studies in local cultural history and greatly encouraged the accumulation of collections in this subject.

Sclater resigned in 1906 and for the following thirty years he worked in the British Museum (Natural History). In July 1944 he was killed by a V1 flying bomb in London.

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Life Chronology

--born on 23 September 1863.
--1885: M.A., Keble College, Oxford
--1886: demonstrator in zoology, University College, London; collecting expedition to British Guiana
--1887: demonstrator in zoology, Cambridge University
--1887-1891: deputy superintendent of the Indian Museum, Calcutta
--1891-1895: assistant master, Eton College
--1896-1906: (first) director of the South African Museum, Cape Town
--1899: publishes his The Geography of Mammals, with P. L. Sclater
--1906-1909: director of the Colorado College Museum
--1909-1944: staff member of the Natural History Museum, London
--1912: publishes his A History of the Birds of Colorado
--1913-1930: editor of Ibis
--1919-1920: takes a trip around the world, visiting museums
--1921-1938: editor of the Zoological Record
--1924, 1930: publishes his Systema Avium Aethiopicarum
--1928-1933: president, British Ornithologists' Union
--1928-1944: chairman, British Ornithologists' Union List Committee
--1930: receives the Godman-Salvin gold medal from the British Ornithologists' Union
--1931-1943: secretary, Royal Geographical Society
--1935: trip to the West Indies
--dies at London, England, on 7 July 1944.

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