Arthur Stanley Hirst

Born in Hackney, where his father practiced medicine, Hirst was educated at the Merchant Taylor's School, and studied zoology at the University College London.

With the abundant material he had at his disposal, he initially described new spiders, harvestmen, scorpions and millipedes, but soon worked mainly on mites and ticks.

[1] In 1927 ill health forced him to leave the museum and go to Australia and a drier climate, where he continued his Acari studies at the University of Adelaide.

[1] He was succeeded as head of the arachnids section by Susan Finnegan, the first woman to be appointed to a post at the Natural History Museum.

[2] In April 1930, taking advantage of an improvement in his health, Hirst set off to return to England, but died at sea before arriving in Colombo.