Stanley Cramp

Stanley Cramp , OBE , (born September 24, 1913 in Stockport , Cheshire , † August 20, 1987 ) was a British administrative officer and ornithologist who was best known as the editor of the nine-volume encyclopedia The Birds of the Western Palearctic (BWP).

Life

Cramp was the eldest son of Thomas and Edith Cramp. In 1934 he earned a Bachelor of Arts in Administration from the University of Manchester and studied at night school. In October of the same year, after passing the entrance examination, he became a customs officer in Manchester and stayed there until he was transferred to London . He worked there from April 1938 until his early retirement in 1970, interrupted by military service in the Royal Air Force between 1944 and 1946.

Cramp devoted himself to bird watching from the age of 14 , and serious ornithology dominated much of his life. He was a member of the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO), the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) and the British Ornithologists' Union (BOU) and has held various administrative functions in all three organizations and in many other bodies. From 1979 to 1983 he was elected President of the British Ornithologists' Union to succeed Sir Hugh Elliott .

Cramp was also active in other national conservation organizations. From 1982 to 1985 he was a member of the Advisory Committee for England and then Chairman of the Advisory Committee on Birds of the Nature Conservancy Council . In 1975, Cramp was named Officer of the Order of the British Empire for his services to bird conservation.

In 1960 Cramp became editor of British Birds magazine and in 1963 editor-in-chief, a position he held until his death. For the last 17 years of his life, he engaged in the production of The Birds of the Western Palearctic , a monumental assignment that ultimately hurt his health. From 1977 to 1985 he published the first four volumes and initiated the fifth. From the beginning of 1983 his health deteriorated noticeably and in August 1987 he died of a stroke and a subsequent pneumonia. The remaining five volumes were published after Cramp's death between 1988 and 1994 by Christopher M. Perrins and Duncan Brooks .

Awards and dedication names

• 1963 - Bernard Tucker Medal from the British Trust for Ornithology
• 1966 - Gold Medal from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds
• 1975 - Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE)
• 1978 - Stamford Raffles Medal from the Zoological Society of London
• 1983 - Union Medal of the British Ornithologists' Union

In 1993 the Dutch ornithologist Cees S. Roselaar named the subspecies Corvus rhipidurus stanleyi of the bristle raven in honor of Stanley Cramp.

literature

• Karel H. Voous : In memoriam Stanley Cramp (1913-1987) . Ardea 76 (1), 1988, p. 111 (Dutch)
• Kenneth Edwin Laurence Ryder Simmons : Obituary: Stanley Cramp (1913–1987) (PDF). Ibis. 131, 1989, pp. 612-614. doi : 10.1111 / j.1474-919X.1989.tb04798.x
• Kenneth Edwin Laurence Ryder Simmons: A life for ornithology: Stanley Cramp (1913–1987) (PDF). British Birds. 85 (Special Supplement), 1992, pp. 387-414.

Web links

• Literature by and about Stanley Cramp in the WorldCat bibliographic database