Roger Graham Payne 1949-2024
Roger Payne, a key figure in Essex natural history for over 40 years, died in February in Church Rose Nursing Home, Handsworth. Roger was born in Birmingham on 15th January 1949. He was always proud of his working class roots and that he had been brought up in one of the original post-war prefab bungalows which he recalled as being very comfortable. It was not far from enticing open country on the southern edge of Birmingham. He attended Kings Norton Grammar School where he was awarded the John Martin prize for natural history, perhaps a sign of the direction he would later take. Certainly, while still at school he was a keen member of his local natural history society. Following school Roger went on to gain a HND in Applied Biology at Wolverhampton Polytechnic followed by an MSc in Biology. He then obtained an MSc in Environmental Resources at Salford University. He worked for a while as a lab technician in Cambridge, working on some aspect of primate behaviour. He was fully involved in the colourful cultural life of the late 1960s and early 1970s, proud to have seen Jimi Hendrix at the 1970 Isle of Wight festival, hitch-hiking to Afghanistan and participating in the early miners’ strikes of 1972 or 1974. By this time Roger was working as a lab technician in Birmingham Museum and met his future partner Hughie in 1977, formalised much later with Civil Partnership when that became possible. About 1979 he applied for the post of Assistant Keeper (Natural History) at Southend Museum, dressed in a rather stylish tweed suit. I never saw him in a suit again, hardly ever with a tie. He was resolutely casual for his whole working life, always with a string of Afghan beads around his neck. At the time of Roger’s appointment, the former Carnegie Central Library in Southend was in the final throes of refurbishment as the new Central Museum which opened in April 1981. Roger threw himself enthusiastically into the preparation of the displays, a couple of which survive today, some 40 years later and not looking embarrassingly out of date. Roger had a gift of being able to explain biological matters in simple language, a rare skill in the museum world. For the next 33 years Roger worked at the museum, firstly as the Assistant Keeper and later as the Keeper of Natural History. Life was a mixture of working on the collections, answering enquiries and preparing displays and exhibitions. Roger’s desk was a sea of tiny bottles and jars with the occasional living specimen; it was amazing that he was able to work on it. No-one ever suggested ‘hot desking’ to him. There was a bank of small aquaria in the main museum gallery and Roger introduced giant New Guinea stick insects to them. They bred parthenogenetically very fast and for many years we would find young stick insects in unlikely places around the museum.
Temporary exhibitions which were designed to travel were major activities over many years. “Foodplants of the World” (1987) was probably one of the most comprehensive exhibitions on this topic ever mounted in a British Museum. Opened by David Bellamy, it featured hundreds of live plants such as primitive potato and maize varieties from the Andes, all grown in the council greenhouses. It also featured beautiful wax casts of exotic fruits and vegetables gathered by Roger in forays to Brixton and Whitechapel. He also worked on many activities aimed mainly at families; even in the midst of bank holiday crowds at these happenings Roger remained typically laid back and unflustered.
Roger was a very good field naturalist. Apart from his speciality, hoverflies, he knew his birds and was a good botanist, making many discoveries around the county. I was with him when we discovered the amazing botanical richness of Shoebury Old Ranges with 14 species of clover. Following his retirement from the Museum, Roger joined the Essex Botany Group recording sessions each Tuesday and helped add many thousands of plant records to the 3rd Flora of Essex database in addition to the 2,500+ records of his own made in the Southend area. He was also a joint finder of the Scarce Emerald Damselfly Lestes dryas on the Foulness marshes around 1982. He kept records meticulously in a series of very tidy notebooks (his handwriting was exceptionally neat).
He travelled the world during his holidays. He had friends in Ghana which he visited several times. He also visited the United States where he was run over and badly injured although he seemed to recover well. The compensation he received from this accident enabled him to buy his house in Westcliff-on-Sea. On retirement in 2014, Roger remained in Westcliff. He had a garden with a Carob tree of which he was very proud as it is not normally considered able to grow in Britain. It eventually towered over his house and was no doubt a champion tree. Both before and after retirement he commuted regularly to Birmingham to see Hughie and other Birmingham friends. He had heart problems and following an operation on his heart an X-ray showed that he was developing lung cancer which despite treatment eventually beat him. Roger was an active member of the South Essex Natural History Society until it folded in 2016. Together we ran inter-society quizzes on natural history for many years for which he devised questions and adjudicated on awkward questions. He was also active in the Essex Field Club and was its President for a couple of years. But he never really warmed to committees. Roger was Essex County recorder for Syrphidae (hoverflies) from the late 90s, and for Coleoptera (beetles) from 2022, both until his death. For many years Roger was a keen cyclist, in his youth going all over his home region, only taking up motoring much later. He was keen on all music, classical (particularly the English Pastoral of Elgar, Vaughan Williams and Bax), jazz and more exotic strains, a liking inherited from his father.
Roger left his extensive invertebrate collection to the Essex Field Club. It consists of Syrphidae, other Diptera, Coleoptera, Hemiptera, Hymenoptera, and 12 trays of butterflies from the UK and around the world. The collection can be seen by appointment at the Green Centre. The full collection catalogue spreadsheet here is searchable.