Captain Cyril Diver, C.B., C.B.E., (1892 – 17 February 1969), was a civil servant and amateur naturalist. He became the first Director-General of the Nature Conservancy.

Life

Diver was born in 1892, the son of Lt Colonel C Diver and the author, Maud Diver. Educated at Dover College and Trinity College, Oxford, after serving in France during World War I, he became a clerk in the House of Commons.[1]

In the 1930s he performed a systematic survey of the varied ecosystems of Studland, Dorset.[2] A keen naturalist he was especially interested in molluscan ecology and genetics.

During the war he was a clerk to the select committee on national expenditure. In May 1940 the House of Commons appointed its "Miss K Midwinter" as the first woman to be a clerk. She was initially placed as an assistant to "Captain Diver", but she went on to have her own committee in the following year.[3]

Between 2012 and 2015, the National Trust ran a citizen science project named after Cyril – the Cyril Diver Project that was designed to carry out a comprehensive ecological survey of the Studland peninsula in a similar manner to Diver's original study.[4]

References

  1. ↑ "Captain Cyril Diver, 1892-1969". The Conchological Society of Great Britain and Ireland. Retrieved 1 May 2016.
  2. ↑ "Cyril Diver's archive". Dorset Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Archived from the original on 15 May 2016. Retrieved 1 May 2016.
  3. ↑ Takayanagi, Mari (25 September 2014). Midwinter [married name Midwinter-Vergin], Kathleen Margaret [Kay] (1909–1995), first female clerk in the House of Commons and United Nations official. Vol. 1. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/107218.
  4. ↑ "The Cyril Diver Project". The National Trust. Retrieved 1 May 2016.
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