Rodney Wood was a great naturalist who spent 50 years mainly in
Nyasaland studying and collecting mammals, birds, fish, insects
(especially butterflies), shells and plants. After a good education in
England he first went to Africa in 1909 to work on a cotton plantation,
but was always seeking new challenges and at various times owned a
tea estate, became a school teacher and was involved in the Boy Scout
movement when invited by the founder Baden-Powell to Canada for three years to teach
bush and camp craft. On returning to Africa in 1921 his ship visited the Seychelles in the
Indian Ocean; he returned here in later years to beachcomb and collect shells and coral
reef fishes.
In Nyasaland Wood was greatly concerned by the rapid depletion of game animals
as the country was opened up for agriculture. He lobbied for creation of a Government
Game Department and in 1929 became Nyasaland’s first ‘Game Warden, Cultivation
Protection and Tsetse Fly Control Officer’. In this capacity he sought out promising areas
for conservation, several of which later became Malawi’s National Parks, now enjoyed by
so many visitors.
Wood’s knowledge of the natural history of the African bush was prodigious; he hunted
with bow and arrow and as an expert tracker assisted several long scientific expeditions
collecting birds. His own meticulously recorded specimens were sent to major scientific
institutions, including the British Museum (Natural History) in London; many new species
were named after him. At the BMNH Happold studied Wood’s mammal collections, and
in the fish section, he examined Wood’s collection of Lake Nyasa’s spectacularly rich fish
fauna were invaluable in enabling us to make the first Fisheries Surveys of the lake. This
Survey was initiated as part of the two year Nutrition Survey of Nyasaland sponsored by
the UK in 1938 interrupted by the war until I was sent to continue it in 1945.
David Happold’s excellent well-researched biography of Wood’s life is set in a broad
historical background of development in this part of Africa from the 1850’s when the
explorer David Livingstone was the first to voyage up Lake Nyasa seeking information
about the Arab slave trade. The many aspects of Wood’s varied life, including estate
management in various parts of the country, are described with revealing extracts from
Wood’s correspondence on issues such as suggested improvements in agricultural methods
and tsetse fly control. Wherever Wood lived he created a flower garden - often with plants
new to the country. These accounts give a vivid picture of the radical changes to the
ecology and human life in this part of Africa. Happold’s book has useful Appendices with
Notes on Sources of information and the many species collected by Wood.
Wood died in the Seychelles in 1962. Happold’s Epilogue sums up Wood’s life in
saying that he will be remembered far and wide as a character with a huge sense of fun
and a generous nature who had immense energy and enthusiasm and enjoyed sharing his
delight in the wonders of the natural world. His influence and contributions to biology and
conservation will long be remembered. Rodney Wood, an exceptionally keen observer of
all living things, was a most stimulating host at his Monkey Bay home on Lake Nyasa in
1945-47 when as a young biologist I was working on this beautiful Rift Valley lake. I was
indeed fortunate in having his friendship and access to his vast store of natural history
information.
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