G S West

[mossysal]

Many if not most of Birm. Nat. Hist Soc seem to have Prof. West's handwriting. Do we know if he actively collected with the Society, or if he only curated their collections?

[oldnick]

Sorry, not an informed answer, but - I have long thought these were predominantly West's handwriting; West was aged around 18 or so when many of these were collected and I picture him joining in such outings at that age; but being naturally keen, doing some additional curating also - the latter would be evident if some of the collections were made when he was much younger, ie curated by him later; I have also seen similarly inscribed collections from familiar locations (eg Berkswell) with a Birm label naming him not the Nat Hist Phil Soc, which implies he was the collector, perhaps reserving a specimen from a Soc field trip. Sorry all guesswork possibly illogical?