Serie VRU/1/5/1 - Claude F Rivers

Extent: 3 folders

Claude F Rivers correspondence, Virus Research Unit, 1955-1962; mainly regarding the collection and experimentation with moth larvae and viruses and examination of larvae from other scientists for evidence of viruses.

Admin History: Claude Frederick Rivers, British Lepidopterist and Virologist (13 Dec 1925, Bexley - Jan 2006, Swansea). Educated at Margate College and Dartford Grammar School. He worked at a butterfly farm, a bank and served in the Royal Marines before starting a moth farm in Dartford with his wife in 1948 (https://www.britishpathe.com/video/lepidopterist/query/Lane). He joined the VRU (The Insect Virology Unit) in 1953, working with butterflies and moths for virus research. He continued collecting insects in his local woodland with colleague Brian Gardiner, compiling a list of its lepidoptera and in 1954 discovered the first iridescent virus disease of insects. He pioneered the use of nuclear polyhedrosis virus for the control of European pine sawfly. In 1960 he began publishing papers on viruses as insect pesticides, and in 1976 provided a chapter in John Heath's The Moths and Butterflies of Great Britain and Ireland on pathogens in the regulation of insect populations. In the 1969 he left the VRU and joined the Natural Environment Research Council's Institute of Virology in Oxford, retiring in 1982 to become a consultant in applied insect pathology. He was honorary secretary and treasurer of the Entomological Club, founded in 1826 and restricted to 8 members until 2004. In 1963 he had become a Cambridge councillor, serving on the education and housing committees. Later in Oxford, he was a school governor, a JP, chaired the Confederation for the Advancement of State Education, supported many charities - including the Galapagos Islands Conservation Trust - and worked as a volunteer driver for a cancer hospice. He gave many talks on his entomological work and, in the 1970s, helped with insect material and background information for the BBC series Natural World.