Michael Willmer Forbes Tweedie (2 September 1907 – 25 March 1993) was a naturalist and archaeologist working in

South East Asia Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical south-eastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of mainland ...

, who was Director of the

Raffles Museum ms, Muzium Negara Singapura ta, சிங்கப்பூரின் தேசிய அருங்காட்சியகம் , native_name_lang = , logo = , image = 2016 Singapur, Museum Planning Area, Narodowe Muzeum Singapuru (02) ...

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, bor ...

Biography

Tweedie was the son of Maurice Carmichael Tweedie, who was Deputy Inspector-General in the Imperial

Indian Police Service The Indian Police Service ( IPS) is a civil service under the All India Services. It replaced the Indian Imperial Police in 1948, a year after India became independent from the British Raj. Along with the Indian Administrative Service (I ...

, and his wife Mildred Clarke. He read Natural Science at

Cambridge University The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209 and granted a royal charter by Henry III of England, Henry III in 1231, Cambridge is the world' ...

, specializing in zoology and geology, followed by a short spell working as an oil geologist in Venezuela. He became assistant

curator A curator (from la, cura, meaning "to take care") is a manager or overseer. When working with cultural organizations, a curator is typically a "collections curator" or an "exhibitions curator", and has multifaceted tasks dependent on the parti ...

of the Raffles Museum (now the National University of Singapore's

Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum The Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum (LKCNHM) ( Chinese: 李光前自然历史博物馆) is a museum of natural history at the Kent Ridge Campus of the National University of Singapore. It is named after Lee Kong Chian, a prominent Chines ...

) in 1932 until the Japanese occupation in 1941. At the outbreak of war in 1939, he joined the volunteer Royal Air Force and in 1941 joined the Royal Air Force as a camouflage officer, drawing on his knowledge of camouflage in nature. After Singapore fell, he was evacuated to Java, where his knowledge of Malay, learned from the local staff in Singapore, was valuable. He was taken prisoner by the Japanese in Java. While being held at Boi Glodok he developed a yeast mixture, grown on potatoes, whose high vitamin B content helped cure his fellow prisoners of pellagra. He was subsequently moved to

Nagasaki is the capital and the largest Cities of Japan, city of Nagasaki Prefecture on the island of Kyushu in Japan. It became the sole Nanban trade, port used for trade with the Portuguese and Dutch during the 16th through 19th centuries. The Hi ...

in Japan and then Mukden ( Shenyang) in Manchuria before liberation by Soviet troops in 1945. After the end of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

, he became Director of the museum in 1946, remaining in that post until 1957. Tweedie was involved in many biological and archaeological expeditions in South East Asia and collected many specimens himself. Many of Tweedie's collections were of species that proved to be new to science (such as a leech, '' Phytobdella catenifera''). He also wrote many scientific articles particularly regarding

crustacean Crustaceans (Crustacea, ) form a large, diverse arthropod taxon which includes such animals as decapods, seed shrimp, branchiopods, fish lice, krill, remipedes, isopods, barnacles, copepods, amphipods and mantis shrimp. The crustacean group can ...

s, fish, and reptiles. He also wrote many books to encourage the layman in the study of natural history and

archaeology Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landsca ...

. He was made an honorary member of the Malayan Nature Society. Tweedie married Elvira Toby, of Hobart, Australia, in 1938, and they had a son and two daughters.

Legacy

Tweedie is commemorated in the scientific names of a species of Malaysian snake, '' Macrocalamus tweediei''.Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). ''The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles''. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. . ("Tweedie", p. 269).

Bibliography

*Editor of the Malaysian Nature Handbooks series published by

Longman Longman, also known as Pearson Longman, is a publishing company founded in London, England, in 1724 and is owned by Pearson PLC. Since 1968, Longman has been used primarily as an imprint by Pearson's Schools business. The Longman brand is also ...

Malaysia. *Tweedie MWF (1953). "The Stone Age in Malaya". ''Journal of the Malayan Branch

Royal Asiatic Society The Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, commonly known as the Royal Asiatic Society (RAS), was established, according to its royal charter of 11 August 1824, to further "the investigation of subjects connected with and for the en ...

'' 26 (2): 1-90. *Tweedie MWF, Harrison JL (1954). ''Malayan Animal Life''. Longman. *Tweedie MWF (1977). ''The World of Dinosaurs''. New York: William Morrow and Co., Inc *Tweedie MWF (1983). ''The Snakes of Malaya''. Singapore: Singapore National Printers Ltd. 105 pp. ASIN B0007B41IO.

References

1907 births 1993 deaths Natural history of Indonesia English archaeologists British carcinologists British curators British expatriates in Singapore Museum directors Alumni of the University of Cambridge 20th-century British zoologists British expatriates in Venezuela {{UK-archaeologist-stub