Cyril Diver

Captain Cyril Diver, C.B., C.B.E., (1892 – 17 February 1969), was the first Director-General of the Nature Conservancy. The son of Lt Col 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. In the 1930s he performed a systematic survey of the varied ecosystems of Studland, Dorset. A keen naturalist he was especially interested in molluscan ecology and genetics. Between 2012–15, 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.