John F.W. Quekett was a son of Professor John Thomas Quekett of London and his wife Isabella Mary Anne, born Scott. He was educated in that city. He emigrated to Natal in 1871 and was elected a Fellow of the Zoological Society of London (FZS) during the early 1880's. In 1886 he was appointed to organise the collections of the Natal Society in Pietermaritzburg and by 1888 was honorary secretary of its Museum and Science Department. Three years later he was secretary and the first curator of the museum (which was a forerunner of the Natal Museum). Meanwhile he applied for employment in the Natal civil service in 1889, and in its new Forestry Department in 1891.

In June 1895 Quekett was appointed curator of the Durban Natural History Museum, succeeding J.S. Steel*. He also served as secretary and treasurer of the museum's management committee. Owing to ill health he retired in 1909. Though he did some work on Natal moths, his specialisation was in conchology. He went on many field trips with H.C. Burnup* to collect shells and they were the first collectors to obtain shells from the stomach of the Musselcracker fish. These were obtained from a Durban fishmonger, Alex ("Lexy") Anderson. Among others the marine shells Glycymeris queketti and Haliotis queketti, and the non-marine species Gulella queketti and Natalina quekettiana, were named after Quekett.

He became a member of the South African Philosophical Society in 1899 and remained a member when it became the Royal Society of South Africa in 1908. In September 1910 he was elected joint vice-president of the newly established (but short-lived) Natal Scientific Society.

List of sources:
Argus annual and South African directory, 1890, 1891: Natal Society.

Barnard, K.H. Personal names in South African conchology. Cape Town: Conchological Society of Southern Africa, 1965.

Herbert, D. & Kilburn, D. Field guide to the land snails and slugs of eastern South Africa. Pietermaritzburg: Natal Museum, 2004.

John Quekett. My Heritage, at https://www.myheritage.com/names/john_quekett as on 21 May 2020.

Kilburn, R. & Rippey, E. Sea shells of southern Africa. Johannesburg: Macmillan, 1982.

Natal almanac, directory and yearly register, 1888, 1893, 1898.

National Automated Archival Information Retrieval System (NAAIRS). http://national.archives.gov.za/naairs.htm Documents relating to Queckett, John Frederick Whitlie / Quekett, J.F.

The Naturalist (Durban), 1911, Vol. 1, Numbers 3, 5 and 6: Council of the Natal Scientific Society.

Quickelberge, C. Collections and recollections: The Durban Natural History Museum, 1887-1987. Durban Natural History Museum, 1987.

Royal Society of South Africa. Transactions, 1908-1910, Vol. 1, list of members.

South African Philosophical Society. Transactions, 1906-1907, Vol. 16 and 17: Lists of members.

Compiled by: C. Plug

Last updated: 2020-05-21 09:48:44