Nigel St. John Cuming 1938 - 2021
Nigel Cuming, as he was more familiarly known, was born on June 1st 1938 in Jerusalem, where his father was serving as an officer in the R.A.F. At the age of five and speaking only French, he moved to England where he was to be brought up in the village of Fordham, near Colchester, Essex.
In 1953, the third incarnation of the Colchester Natural History Society (C.N.H.S.) was founded by a group of keen, local naturalists, including Joe Firmin, a cousin of Nigel. A junior section was soon formed with Nigel among the first to sign up.
Initially, Nigel’s interest had been ornithology but, during the 1960’s, the well-known coleopterist F.D. 'Freddie' Buck was an active member of C.N.H.S. and doubtless sowed the seed of Nigel’s interest in beetles that was to become so important to him later in life.
After finishing his education, Nigel started work in 1959 in the laboratory at BX Plastics in Brantham. He and Marion married in 1961, the couple setting up home in Stanway, Essex, where they brought up two children. On leaving BX in 1974 he worked for four years in the fishing retail sector before undertaking training as a mental health nurse, graduating in 1981 and working at Severalls Hospital in Colchester.
Nigel’s enthusiasm for, and knowledge of, the natural world was the result of personal experience and was an inspiration to all who knew him, his wide-ranging interests included beetles, bugs, butterflies, orchids and birds. Other passions were freshwater fishing, music and overseas travel.
Taking early retirement in his mid-50s provided the chance to rekindle his interest in beetles, becoming first a volunteer and later part-time Assistant Curator, at Colchester Museums.
In his spare time Nigel enjoyed attending and, in some cases, leading, CNHS car and coach trips, indoor meetings and carrying out his own field trips to favourite sites such as Marks Hall. Here he became involved, along with the late Joe Firmin, Ian Rose, Dave Warner and other members, in the successful reintroduction of the Purple Emperor. He was a frequent attender at moth nights, hoping for rare beetles amongst the “leps”! On one occasion I recall him turning up at the museum after a night’s mothing with a good imitation of a cauliflower ear - the result of an unfortunate nocturnal encounter with a hornet!
Alternating between puffing on his pipe and his home-made pooters, he was also a familiar figure at Old Hall Marshes, Abberton and Fingringhoe Wick nature reserves, turning up some scarce beetles at all these sites. Although the family had previously enjoyed camping holidays in Suffolk, it was a few years later, on the retirement of his wife Marion, that Nigel’s involvement in this County increased dramatically. The couple purchased a static caravan at Aldeburgh and spent many enjoyable weeks each year exploring the Suffolk coast.
Joining Suffolk Naturalists’ Society (S.N.S.) in 1996, Nigel became a regular volunteer at both RSPB Minsmere and NT Dunwich Heath, recording beetles and other invertebrates, as well as at North Warren, Sizewell and Thorpeness. Having a similar pace of working (slowly!) we often collected together at these and also Essex localities and I learned a lot from him. It was on these excursions that he developed an interest in bugs, in 2003 becoming recorder of Terrestrial Heteroptera for the S.N.S. He added Nysius huttoni the alien New Zealand Wheat bug to the British list, as well as Corizus hyoscyami, Aphanus rolandri, Peritrechus convivus and Brachycarenus tigrinus to the Suffolk list. He also served on S.N.S. Council from 2006-2009. Through his Suffolk connection, Nigel came to know the late Suffolk Coleoptera Recorder, David Nash and was a frequent caller at David’s Brantham home, dropping off or collecting specimens for identification, en route to Aldeburgh. Nigel’s finds were frequently of such scarce species that when he told David over the telephone, it often elicited the response “are you sure?” More often than not Nigel had got it right!
When not in Aldeburgh, or travelling overseas, Nigel was also active on his home patch; as Coleoptera Recorder for Colchester Natural History Society he found many scarce species, including at Marks Hall, Trachys minutus, Pissodes castaneus and Cicones undatus, all new to Essex.
The record he was most proud of, however, was the rediscovery of the weevil Rhynchites auratus at Abberton, the first British record since 1839! Nigel was proud to accompany some of the country’s leading coleopterists to see this beetle on the blackthorn hedges of the area.
Nigel certainly excelled at rediscovering species that, in many cases, had not been seen for over a century, a testimony to his diligent and thorough field techniques.
Although he did not publish extensively in his lifetime, Nigel exhibited many of his more important specimens at the annual exhibitions of the British Entomological and Natural History Society in London, also enjoying the Club’s Exhibition and Social and attending the Amateur Entomologist’s Society Annual Exhibition latterly at Kempton Park, to purchase equipment and books and meet up with old friends.
Nigel recognised the importance of maintaining a collection of well documented specimens and his setting, labelling and identification skills would put many a curator to shame. He was always ready to donate surplus material to museums or to fellow enthusiasts and above all to share his wide knowledge with anyone who showed an interest in any aspect of natural history, whether through leading field trips or on a one-to-one basis, interactions that were always tempered by his dry sense of humour.
Nigel’s extensive personal collection of bugs and beetles has been donated to the Essex Field Club; the Hemiptera have been catalogued and are available for study at the Green Centre; the beetles are still being catalogued. Other material collected by Nigel forms part of the entomology collections of Colchester and Ipswich Museum Service.
Nigel passed away on October 22nd 2021 and leaves a wife, Marion, son Simon and daughter Rachel.
The Hemiptera specimens are in cabinet 81 in the Green Centre (see below for details). The spreadsheet is the full Hemiptera catalogue, and is searchable.