Walter Frederick Whittard, 1902-1966

Walter Frederick Whittard was born in Battersea on 26 October 1902 and died at his home at Westbury-on-Trym near Bristol on 2 March 1966. His father, Thomas W. Whittard, was a prosperous grocer in Clapham, London, whose wife Sarah (Cotterell) bore him four children, of whom Walter Frederick was the youngest. Little is known of the early history of the family; the surname is said to be derived from Whiteheart or Wytard and to mark a connexion with the Stroud region of Gloucestershire, while his mother’s family were associated with Stockton-on-Tees. He attended the County Secondary School at Battersea and as a boy his interests outside normal school activities were mainly zoological. He was an enthusiastic beetle collector (and in later life would still take note of the water-beetles to be found in a flooded quarry) and became a founder member of the school Natural History Society. Through a mutual friend of his elder brother Tom, however, he was introduced to T. Eastwood, of the Geological Survey, and it was Eastwood who aroused and fostered his interest in geology and induced his father to launch young Whittard on a geological career. Thus it came about that on Eastwood’s advice he attended A. J. Maslen’s evening classes in geology at Chelsea Polytechnic (now Chelsea College of Science and Technology) while still a schoolboy and it was here that Stubblefield and I first met him. Maslen’s gifts as a teacher were widely recognized and his classes attracted a number of well-known amateurs as well as a few schoolboys and many London External students in various stages of their careers. I remember in particular at this time Whittard’s enthusiasm for any geological excursions and the innumerable collecting trips that he made on his own to localities around London and the Home Counties and even as far afield as the Cotswolds.