Robert C. Murdoch


Robert C. Murdoch was a malacologist in New Zealand.

Biography

He received a secondary-school education, and afterwards travelled widely with Captain Shuttleworth, of Wanganui. He spent some years subsequent to 1888 in farming near Wanganui, but in 1892 he went to Sydney and studied Mollusca with Mr. Charles Hedley. Soon afterwards he entered commercial life, which he followed until his death on 11 November 1923. He had a kind and sympathetic nature and it gained for him a multitude of friends throughout the country.

Scientific work

For many years Murdoch devoted all of his spare time to the study of the New Zealand Mollusca. He was several times a contributor to Transactions and Proceedings of the New Zealand Institute and to the Journal of the Malacological Society. At the time of his sudden and unexpected death, he had arranged to give up business life and devote himself solely to research. During a visit to England about 1914, his important and extensive collections, which included several type specimens of New Zealand Mollusca, were destroyed in a fire. Murdoch was unmarried, and was well known as a prominent Freemason.
Murdoch cooperated with the geologist Patrick Marshall on fossil molluscs.
The generic name Murdochia is in honor of him.
He formally named and described some species of sea snails, marine gastropods, including: