A tale of two collectors

The Finlay and Laws Collections

Blog by Thomas Stolberger, Collection Technician, IDEA Project

Over the past two years, I have been fortunate to examine and catalogue some 5000 of the molluscan specimens housed within the Paleontology and Marine Invertebrate collections of Tāmaki Paenga Hira Auckland War Memorial Museum as part of my work on the Improved Documentation Enhanced Access (IDEA) project. Prominent among these are specimens that originate from the collections of C.R. Laws and H.J. Finlay, two of the most renowned malacologists (molluscan experts) of their time from Aotearoa New Zealand. While they were both very different people, many similarities link the two, including the time that they were active in their careers, the provenance of many of their specimens, and the circumstances in which their collections were acquired by Auckland Museum in the mid-1930s. Together, their collections represent one of Aotearoa’s most important invertebrate paleontology collections outside the National Paleontology Collection housed at GNS Science in Lower Hutt, and remain a valuable asset in the study of New Zealand mollusca to this day.

Dr Charles Laws

Born in Auckland on January 21st 1894, Dr Charles Reed Laws is widely remembered as a pioneer in the study of micromolluscs in Aotearoa New Zealand at a time when these enigmatic creatures were poorly understood and largely overlooked. After leaving school he began a successful and lifelong career in teaching, including stints at the Dunedin Teacher’s Training College, Auckland Training College, and the Auckland University College. However, it was his contributions to malacology (the study of molluscs) and paleontology (the study of fossils) that saw him gain prominence in the scientific community. In 1925, he became the second ever student to undertake a thesis in geology at the Auckland University College, for which he was awarded the Julius von Haast prize by the University of London.

One of Laws’ greatest contributions to New Zealand malacology was the study of living and fossil species of the micromolluscan gastropod family Pyramidellidae, which earned him a DSc in 1935. This work on pyramidellidae saw him recognised as the national authority on the group and was published as an eight-paper review series between 1936 and 1940 that included descriptions for 52 living and about 70 fossil pyramidellid species that were new to science. Around the same time, Laws was also involved in the taxonomic description of molluscan species from two of northern New Zealand’s most significant fossil localities at Kaawa Creek and Pakaurangi Point, between which he published six papers and named >200 new species – again, many of which were minute forms. Most of this research was undertaken in his own time and at his own expense.

An original handmade composite figure plate constructed by A. W. B. Powell for publication in Laws’ first volume on the Tertiary and Recent Neozelanic Pyramidellid Molluscs (Plate 33, Laws 1937). The pencil annotations were presumably added by Powell at Laws’ behest, and were removed for the final publication.

Alongside his research, Laws amassed several large collections of fossil and recent mollusc specimens, which he used as a research reference collection and a teaching resource. These specimens were acquired through field collecting and via exchanges with other shell collectors. In July 1932 Laws gave 54 specimens of fossil molluscs from the South Island to Auckland Museum, followed by a further collection of these in 1934. In 1936, he sold the bulk of his collection to the Auckland Institute and Museum, which included over 250 holotype specimens of species that he had described up to that point. This included most of his pyramidellids, and many fossil specimens from Kaawa Creek, in addition to those from other localities such as Clifden, Southland. In the years following the sale, Laws began a second reference collection. From this collection, he would go on to sell approximately 700 type specimens to the NZ Geological Survey (now GNS Science), a large assortment of ~2,400 local and ~3,000 overseas species to the Smithsonian Institute in the United States, and the remainder to the University of Auckland. The latter set would go on to form the basis of the university’s paleontology reference collection.

Holotype specimen of *Austromitra lawsi*, a gastropod species named by Finlay in honour of C. R. Laws [MA70068, Auckland Museum]
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During his later years, Laws remained active in collecting and research, and published several important papers including a NZ Geological Survey monograph on fossil micromolluscs extracted from the diggings of a well shaft at Auckland’s Ōtāhuhu Brewery (now DB Brewery). This work recently returned to significance following the discovery of similar fossils in 2020 during the excavation of a sewage system in nearby Māngere, which Auckland Museum was involved in the collection of. Upon his retirement in 1959, Laws committed himself to his family and many hobbies. He died on 25 Feb 1985, aged 91, leaving a legacy in his research and his vast collections.

Dr Harold Finlay

Harold John Finlay is a name familiar to all who have been involved in the study of fossil and living molluscs in Aotearoa. Born in 1901 to New Zealand Baptist missionaries living in Comilla, India (now Cumilla, Bangladesh), Finlay showed an aptitude toward his studies from a young age. Having moved with his parents back to Dunedin in 1906, he later graduated from the University of Otago with a BSc in 1921 as the first Edmond research fellow in chemistry, and a year later was awarded his MSc in chemistry with first-class honours. It was also around this time that Finlay published his first paper on fossil molluscs, having developed a passion for paleontology during his studies and receiving a national research scholarship in recognition of his promising potential in this field.

Like Laws, Finlay’s work as a paleontologist focused on the systematics of molluscs (describing new species and determining species relationships to one another). He was also involved with the field of biostratigraphy, which utilises fossils to correlate discrete sequences of sedimentary rocks and place them in relative age order to one another. At the time, the biostratigraphic correlation of New Zealand’s geology was poorly understood, and the work by Finlay helped to establish foundations in this field of research for decades to come. Just as Laws did, Finlay amassed a large personal reference collection of recent and fossil molluscs to aid in his research that comprised species from across Aotearoa and around the world. He obtained his specimens through various means. Many of them were personally collected in the field with help from his peers – he had been a wheelchair user for most of his life after contracting polio as a child, and would sometimes call upon them to carry him into remote collecting localities. Other specimens were received through exchanges with various collectors and institutions, often through the same connections as Laws.

Holotype specimen of *Turbonilla haroldi*, a microscopic Pyramidellid gastropod species named by Laws in honour of H. J. Finlay [MA70796, Auckland Museum]
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Despite a promising start to his career, which saw him awarded the Hamilton Memorial Prize in 1926, Finlay undertook all his molluscan work as an independent researcher. He spent much of the 1930s in financial hardship without regular employment, living off small research grants and irregular stints with oil exploration companies as a contracted consultant. These stints would alter the course of his career, and when Finlay secured permanent employment at the New Zealand Geological Survey (now GNS Science) in 1937, it was as a micropaleontologist studying Foraminifera (single-celled microscopic organisms) rather than molluscs. Following this career shift, Finlay sold his extensive mollusc collection to the Auckland Institute and Museum for 400 pounds. The collection was presented to the Museum in 1937, soon after Laws’, and consisted of ~14,000 specimen lots, including 437 ‘type specimens’, mostly of new species that Finlay had personally named and described throughout his career. Specimen labels written in his untidy scrawl showcase the outstanding attention to detail he applied to the study of molluscs and highlight the depth of his “encyclopedic knowledge” in the subject.

Original labels for the holotype specimen of *Alcithoe dyscrita* that illustrate Finlay’s handwriting style and attention to taxonomic detail. [MA70016, Auckland Museum]

Finlay remained with the New Zealand Geological Survey as a micropaleontologist for the rest of his life, where he made significant contributions to our understanding of geological time in New Zealand based on microfossil evidence. He died suddenly on 7th April 1951, aged 50, leaving behind a considerable legacy with his contributions to molluscan and foraminiferal paleontology. This includes >100 molluscan species named after him, and his vast collection housed at Tāmaki Paenga Hira Auckland Museum, which is still utilised by scientists to this day in the study of Aotearoa’s molluscs.

Acknowledgement

I am indebted to Auckland Museum Marine Invertebrate Curator Wilma Blom for pointing me in the direction of the reference material used in this blog post, for reviewing its contents, and for providing additional snippets of information on the collections of Finlay and Laws that aren’t widely publicised. It was Wilma’s deep knowledge of the Marine collections and the many interesting stories behind its acquisition over the years that originally inspired the publication of this blog.