Sir Richard Roy Maconachie,

KBE KBE may refer to: * Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, post-nominal letters * Knowledge-based engineering Knowledge-based engineering (KBE) is the application of knowledge-based systems technology to the domain o ...

, CIE (1885 - 18 January 1962) was an English civil servant in India, naturalist and BBC employee. He studied at Tonbridge School in Kent, England and University College, Oxford before joining the Indian Civil Service. In 1923, he played billiards with Amanullah Khan, then the Emir of Afghanistan. He was British Minister in Kabul, Afghanistan from 1929 to 1935. During his time in Afghanistan, Maconachie assembled a collection of native birds that he later presented to the Natural History Museum at Tring in Tring, England (BMNH 1935-12-28). These bird skins became the basis of ornithologist Hugh Whistler's paper on the birds of Afghanistan in the Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society in 1944–45. In 1936, he succeeded Charles Siepmann as head of Talks at the BBC. It was widely considered a "swing to the right".Asa Briggs: ''The History of Broadcasting in the United Kingdom – Volume II: The Golden Age of Wireless'', Oxford: Oxford University Press 1995, p. 138.
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Offices held

Literature

* Warr, F. E.: ''Manuscripts and Drawings in the ornithology and Rothschild libraries of The Natural History Museum at Tring'', BOC 1996.

References

English naturalists 1962 deaths 1885 births Ambassadors of the United Kingdom to Afghanistan English civil servants English ornithologists People educated at Tonbridge School Alumni of University College, Oxford Indian Civil Service (British India) officers 20th-century British zoologists 20th-century naturalists Members of the Bombay Natural History Society British people in colonial India {{UK-ornithologist-stub