Alwynne Cooper Wheeler

Alwynne (Wyn) Wheeler was a British ichthyologist who was a curator at the Natural History Museum in London. He was educated at St Egbert’s College, Chingford, and Chingford County High School to Higher School Certificate level, and was unusual in that his subsequent scientific career was achieved despite his never having obtained a University degree. He joined the London Natural History Society at the age of 13 and served his National Service as a radiographer and medical photographer in the Royal Army Medical Corps in both the United Kingdom and Jamaica, where he joined the Natural History Society of Jamaica. On leaving the army he applied to the British Museum (Natural History) for a post as an Assistant in the Department of Zoology, starting on 1 June 1950 as an assistant in the Fish Section. He spent his whole career in the Natural History Museum, retiring in 1989.

His two main specialisms were the taxonomy of European fish and studies of historical collections of taxonomic importance. He produced over a hundred different scientific publications and his most important work was The fishes of the British Isles and north-west Europe which was published in 1969 and became the standard, modern British ichthyology text. Other important publications included Key to the Fishes of Northern Europe in 1978, Fishes of the World in 1975 and The World Encyclopedia of Fishes in 1985. He was also a central figure in the monitoring of the clean up of the River Thames and the return of life to the river and he produced The Tidal Thames; The History of a River and its Fishes in 1979 to document this.

As well as scientific publications Wheeler wrote columns in the more popular angling press giving biological information to anglers. he also adjudicated many rod caught records and in 1997 he announced that the many of the largest specimens of Crucian carp Carassius carassius were invalid as they referred to wild goldfish Carassius auratus. He also developed expertise in the identification of fish bone from archaeological sites, co-authoring a manual in 1989 on the identification of fish remains in archaeological sites. He was an editor to and helped to develop the Journal of the Society for the Bibliography of Natural History (now called Archives of Natural History). He retired as editor in 1989.

He retired from the Natural History Museum in 1989. After retirement he worked at Epping Forest Conservation Centre and continued his association with the Museum in his capacity as an official Scientific Associate. He sometimes published under the pen name Allan Cooper, mostly when publishing non-technical, popular articles and books. In 1992 he published A list of the common and scientific names of fishes of the British Isles, this was being revised when he contracted Alzheimer's disease and was completed by Nigel Merrett (his successor at the Museum)and Declan Quigley, being published in 2004.

The Alwyne Wheeler Bursary was established in 1999, on the occasion of Alwyne Wheeler’s retirement as the The Society for the History of Natural History’s Honorary Editor. The bursary was established to facilitate original contributions to the study of the history of natural history by young scholars (i.e.under the age of 30).