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Keppel Harcourt Barnard

South African zoologist (1887-1964)

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 16, 2026
Entity authorityQ677940 ↗
Source-derived summary

Keppel Harcourt Barnard (31 March 1887 – 22 September 1964) was a South African zoologist and museum director. He was the only son of Harcourt George Barnard, a solicitor from Lambeth, and Anne Elizabeth Porter of Royston.

Life and career

Barnard was born in London. His first education was at a private school in Camberley from where he went to the Realgymnasium in Mannheim to improve his German. From 1905 to 1908 this unusually gifted and versatile scholar attended Christ's College, Cambridge, taking the Natural Sciences Tripos in Botany, Geology and Zoology. He also took the newly introduced courses in Anthropology, Ethnology and Geography. For the following three years he studied law at the Middle Temple, becoming a barrister in 1911. After a short spell as naturalist with the Marine Biological Laboratory in Plymouth, he joined the staff of the South African Museum in Cape Town in 1911 as a marine biology assistant. He became assistant director in 1921 and director from 1946 until his 1956 retirement when he was free to work on the molluscs.

His D.Sc.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Keppel Harcourt Barnard” as south African zoologist (1887-1964). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Keppel, Harcourt and Barnard.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1887, 1964, 1905, 1908—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1887-03-31. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Keppel, Harcourt and Barnard providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Keppel Harcourt Barnard”, the useful work is to connect “south African zoologist (1887-1964)” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q677940. VIAF identifies the subject as 75903676. The Library of Congress control number is no95054249. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1887, 1964, 1905 and 1908.

Critical limits

Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Keppel Harcourt Barnard” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.