Henry Suter, A Great Conchologist

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32394, 5 September 1970, Page 7

Henry Suter, A Great Conchologist

MUSEUM OF NATURE

(Contributed by the Cdnterbury Museum) Henry Suter was one of the many foreignborn naturalists who have made a great contributions to New Zealand science.

A Swiss, he was bom in Zurich, and received his' education there. He trained as an analytical chemist, and this introduction to scientific methodology must have been of great value to him in his later work. For some time he was manager of his father’s silk-works in Switzerland, but in 1887 be emigrated, with his family, to New Zealand, and it is well for us that he did so He acquired bushland near Eketahuna, in the Wellington province. Later he worked in Christchurch, and then for about a year was manager of the Hermitage, Mount Cook. While Thomas Frederick Cheeseman, the eminent botanist, and curator of the Auckland Museum from 1874 until 1923 was away, Suter acted as curator of that museum. He was already an expert conchologist, and about 1910 was appointed to the Canterbury Museum to arrange the museum’s shell collection. Long before the writer joined the museum staff, he spent many hours poring over the display collections of New Zealand and foreign shells, which were then displayed as Suter had arranged them. Henry Suter’s major contribution, the "Manual of New Zealand Mollusca," was published by the New Zealand Government Printer in 1913, and the companion, “Atlas of Plates,” in 1915. The manual is a volume of no less than 1120 pages, plus 23 pages of preface and index, a total of 1143. It is indeed a "Massive. Tome.” It listed 1079 species of New Zealand mollusca (shellfish) and was a great advance on any previous work on the subject. Although many of the names of the shells have been changed, and many more named, and described since Suter wrote the book, it

remains an indispensable reference work for anyone working on New Zealand shells. Dr A. W. B. Powell’s various editions of "Shells of New Zealand” continue to provide us with an up-to-date list of all living shells of New Zealand. The latest (1957) edition listed 2202 kinds, and more have been described since then, but we still have to thank Suter for the descriptions of many of them. Powell, incidentally, provides an invaluable list of the papers describing shells which have been published since Suter's manual.

Henry Suter also made a great contribution to the study of fossil shells, and from 1915 to 1921 the New Zealand Geological Survey published several bulletins written by him. He also published many papers on shells in the Proceedings of the

Malacological Society of London, the Transactions of the New Zealand Institute (now the Royal Society of New Zealand) the records of the Canterbury Museum, and the Journal of Malacology. A full list of his books and papers would occupy several pages.

Suter’s own collection of mollusca was acquired by the Wanganui Museum, but later became the property of the New Zealand Geological Survey.

When Henry Suter died on July 31, 1918, New Zealand lost a fine and kindly man and a great scientist His work will last for many years.

His descendants, now including great grand-child-ren, live in various parts of New Zealand.—R.J.S. The illustration is from the museum’s portrait of Henry Suter.