PERSONAL PAPERS

Hugh Bamford Cott (1900-1987) was born in Ashby Magna, Leicestershire, 6 July 1900. He was educated at Rugby; the Royal Military College, Sandhurst; and Selwyn College, Cambridge, BA 1925. He served with the 1st Battalion, the Leicestershire Regiment, in Ireland, 1919-21. He participated in expeditions to the Lower Amazon and Marajo Island, 1925-6, the Zambesi, 1927, and Lanzarote, 1930, collecting reptiles for the British Museum (Natural History). He married Joyce Radford, 1928. He worked as a lecturer in Zoology at Bristol University, 1928-32; Glasgow University, 1932-8; and Cambridge University, 1938-67. He served with the Royal Engineers in Palestine and the Western Desert, and was chief instructor at the Middle East Camouflage School, 1941-3, and staff officer at the Mountain Warfare Training Centre. He was a fellow of Selwyn College, Cambridge, 1945-67 and Strickland Curator and University Lecturer in Zoology. He was also a talented artist and photographer, known for his pen and ink drawings of animals and the African landscape. He died in Stoke Abbott, Dorset, 18 April 1987.

Correspondence about his publications on animal camouflage and African wildlife.

05/2000 - Transferred by the Master, Sir David Harrison, August 2000.