Sidney (sometimes Sydney) Tapscott, mining engineer, was the son of George Arthur Montgomery Tapscott and his wife Ida Margaret Catherine Green. He passed
the matriculation examination of the University of the Cape of Good Hope in
1903. Continuing his studies at the Transvaal University College, Johannesburg,
he was awarded the BSc degree in mining engineering by the University of the
Cape of Good Hope in 1909. In 1912 he moved to Kimberley, where his address was
17 Park Road. In November 1913 he married Helen Burnett Townsend, with whom he had four children.
In 1912 Tapscott presented a large collection of fossil
crustaceans from the Dwyka formation to the McGregor Museum in Kimberley. The
collection seemed of great interest and was sent to Cambridge, England, for
study.
By 1918 Tapscott was a member of the South African Association for the Advancement of Science and resided on the farm Tipperary, near Kimberley. Later he worked on the N'kana Mine at Broken Hill (now Kabwe), Zambia. He was a keen collector and photographer also of succulent plants, collecting in Griqualand West, Botswana, and Zambia. In February 1929 he
collected together with Dr John Hutchinson*. His photographs of succulents are
held in the Bolus Herbarium, University of Cape Town. The species Stultitia tapsottii, commonly known as
the Ghapie, was named after him.
