Background
He was the only son of Harcourt George Barnard Master of Arts Barnard was born in London.
He was the only son of Harcourt George Barnard Master of Arts Barnard was born in London.
From 1905 to 1908 this unusually gifted and versatile scholar attended Christ"s College, Cambridge, taking the Natural Sciences Tripos in Botany, Geology and Zoology. Foreign the following three years he studied law at the Middle Temple, becoming a barrister in 1911.
Cantab), a solicitor from Lambeth, and Anne Elizabeth Porter of Royston. His first education was at a private school in Camberley from where he went to the Realgymnasium in Mannheim to improve his German. He also took the newly introduced courses in Anthropology, Ethnology and Geography.
After a short spell as naturalist with the Marine Biological Laboratory in Plymouth, he joined the staff of the South African Museum in Cape Town in 1911 as a marine biology assistant.
He became assistant director in 1921 and director from 1946 until his 1956 retirement when he was free to work on the molluscs. His Doctor of Science was from the University of Cape Town with a dissertation on the "Distribution of Crustacea in South African Waters", and he eventually became a world authority on crustaceans.
His other favoured field was the taxonomy and classification of South African fishes, a discipline in which he did important pioneering work. Stellenbosch University awarded him an honorary doctorate in 1956.
Barnard"s mountaineering interest first brought him into contact with the genus Colophon, and many species of the beetle, such as Colophon primosi, were named after his mountaineering friends.
Barnard died, aged 73, in Cape Town. Barnard"s studies of South African Crustacea, Mollusca, fishes and insects added significantly to our knowledge of these groups. In 1956 the University of Stellenbosch conferred on him the degree of Doctor of Science honoris causa.".