J.D. Romer, Hong Kong herpetologist, and the founding of the British Herpetological Society

J.D Romer handling Wagler's Pit Viper at the
Snake Temple in Penang, September 1950.
(Aquarist, October 1951)

John Romer (1920-1982) is rightly remembered as Hong Kong’s first proper herpetologist. From 1947 until the 1970s he recorded and described, with a characteristic punctiliousness, what he had seen or what had been brought to him. He described new species, had a new species of frog he discovered, Philautus romeri, named after him and produced checklists of the Hong Kong fauna. He did all this in his spare time while employed as the head of pest control for the Hong Kong Government.

His excellent biography, published with the help of his family in Contributions to the History of Herpetology in 2007, does not mention something about him that I only uncovered recently. Before moving on to that I should explain what an important job his was in Hong Kong.

His section dealt with rats, mice, cockroaches, ants, fleas, bed-bugs, midges and mosquitoes. In terms of public health, the most important ones were rats and mosquitoes. After the outbreak of plague in 1894, with 24,000 cases and a 90% mortality over 35 years, and the identification of rat fleas as the vector by the Indian Plague Commission in 1905-06, every effort was made in Hong Kong to kill urban rats and to examine the corpses bacteriologically. Rats and mice were also important causes of food wastage. Anti-malarial measures in urban areas involved altering the bed of streams to prevent stagnation and spraying standing water with oil to prevent the larvae breathing. In the 1960s when Romer’s section was handed responsibility, 80% of the population was kept free from exposure to malarial mosquitoes. Visible reminders of the pest control section (500 people were employed) were the rat bins attached to lamp posts for corpses to be gathered and a prohibition of standing water as in, say, a plant-pot holder, on private premises.

Romer had been involved in pest control in the army during the war. He served in the Ordnance Corps in Assam from 1942 until 1945 where he was responsible for measures to control rats and mosquitoes during the Burma Campaign. It would appear that he was not demobbed until 1947 since (see below) he appeared as Captain Romer. It is also likely that it was in the army when he advised the Hong Kong Government (military administration from the Japanese surrender until 1 May; civilian thereafter) on rodent control in 1946.

Besides his day job, John Romer also founded Hong Kong Natural History Society (as the Hong Kong Biological Circle) and it is in this connexion, of his involvement in founding societies, that I found further information—but this time in London in 1947.

The Aquarist magazine of January 1947 had this announcement:

Captain J.D. Re[sic]mer, 96 Mortlake Road, Kew, Surrey, is desirous to contact anyone residing in the British Isles who is interested in the study of life histories and habits of Reptilia and Amphibia.

Then in May 1947 the Aquarist announced ‘Proposed Reptile Society for Britain’:

It was clearly Romer who was drumming up support for the new society since he was the point of contact for prospective members. Then in July 1947 issue, it was announced that the new Society had been inaugurated on 11 July. But Romer’s name had gone and the inaugural secretary was Alfred Leutscher. What happened, of course, was that Romer must have been appointed to the pest control job in Hong Kong after his initial approaches to form a herpetological society. The August issue of the Aquarist stated that he would be leaving shortly for Hong Kong. Indeed he left Liverpool on 13 August on board the P&O’s Empress of Scotland with his wife Raymonde and nine-month old son.

Although John Romer had left for Hong Kong, there seems little doubt that he had a key rôle in the formation of the British Herpetological Society, which last year had its 70th anniversary. Indeed, in the late Mike Lambert's history of the Society he is shown as the first Secretary/Treasurer in 1947, with Alfred Leutscher being the second.

Contributions to the History of Herpetology, Volume 2, Edited by Kraig Adler. 2007. Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles. Romer, J.D. (1920-1982), p 212.

Lambert MRK. 1997. The British Herpetological Society. The first 50 years, 1947-1997. Herpetological Journal 7, 129-141.

UPDATED 20 July 2018