Stanley Wells Kemp, FRS (14 June 1882 – 16 May 1945) was an English

marine biologist Marine biology is the scientific study of the biology of marine life, organisms that inhabit the sea. Given that in biology many phyla, families and genera have some species that live in the sea and others that live on land, marine biology clas ...

. He was born in London, the second of three sons of Stephen Kemp, a professor at the Royal Academy and Royal School of Music. As a boy he took an interest in animals, collecting water beetles and maintaining them in aquariums and was a member of the local natural history society. He studied at St Paul's School and later went to

Trinity College Trinity College may refer to: Australia * Trinity Anglican College, an Anglican coeducational primary and secondary school in , New South Wales * Trinity Catholic College, Auburn, a coeducational school in the inner-western suburbs of Sydney, New ...

Dublin Dublin is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Situated on Dublin Bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, and is bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, pa ...

from where he graduated with a gold medal in 1903. He studied botany under H. H. Dixon. In 1910 he joined the Zoological and Anthropological section of the

Indian Museum Indian Museum (formerly called Imperial Museum of Calcutta) is a grand museum in Central Kolkata, West Bengal, India. It is the ninth oldest museum in the world and the oldest, as well as the largest museum in Asia, by size of collection. It ...

and when the organization was converted in 1916 to the

Zoological Survey of India The Zoological Survey of India (ZSI), founded on 1 July 1916 by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change of the Government of India as a premier Indian organisation in zoological research and studies to promote the survey, explora ...

, he became Superintendent and took up the study of

crustacean Crustaceans (from Latin meaning: "those with shells" or "crusted ones") are invertebrate animals that constitute one group of arthropods that are traditionally a part of the subphylum Crustacea (), a large, diverse group of mainly aquatic arthrop ...

s to continue work started by

James Wood-Mason James Wood-Mason (December 1846 – 6 May 1893) was an English zoologist. He was the director of the Indian Museum at Calcutta, after John Anderson (zoologist), John Anderson. He collected marine animals and lepidoptera, but is best known for h ...

and

Alfred William Alcock Alfred William Alcock (23 June 1859 in Bombay – 24 March 1933 in Belvedere, Kent) was a British physician, naturalist, and carcinologist. Early life and education Alcock was the son of a sea-captain, John Alcock in Bombay, India who re ...

. He spent fourteen years in India during which he published seventeen papers on the

decapods The Decapoda or decapods, from Ancient Greek δεκάς (''dekás''), meaning "ten", and πούς (''poús''), meaning "foot", is a large order (biology), order of crustaceans within the class Malacostraca, and includes crabs, lobsters, crayfis ...

in the Indian Museum. In 1918 he made a trip to

Baluchistan Balochistan ( ; , ), also spelled as Baluchistan or Baluchestan, is a historical region in West and South Asia, located in the Iranian plateau's far southeast and bordering the Indian Plate and the Arabian Sea coastline. This arid region of de ...

along with

Thomas Nelson Annandale Thomas Nelson Annandale CIE FRSE (15 June 1876, in Edinburgh – 10 April 1924, in Calcutta) was a British zoologist, entomologist, anthropologist, and herpetologist. He was the founding director of the Zoological Survey of India. Life The eld ...

. Other expeditions were made to the

Andaman Islands The Andaman Islands () are an archipelago, made up of 200 islands, in the northeastern Indian Ocean about southwest off the coasts of Myanmar's Ayeyarwady Region. Together with the Nicobar Islands to their south, the Andamans serve as a mari ...

, the Abor Hills, the

Garo Hills The Garo Hills (IPA: ˈgɑ:ro:) are part of the Garo-Khasi range in the Meghalaya state of India. They are inhabited by the Garo people. It is one of the wettest places in the world. The range is part of the Meghalaya subtropical forests ecor ...

and Rameshwaram. In 1913 he married Agnes Green, daughter of Reverend William Spotswood Green who was the first to climb Mount Cook in

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

. In 1910 he became a Fellow of

Calcutta University The University of Calcutta, informally known as Calcutta University (), is a Public university, public State university (India), state university located in Kolkata, Calcutta (Kolkata), West Bengal, India. It has 151 affiliated undergraduate c ...

and a Fellow of the

Asiatic Society The Asiatic Society is an organisation founded during the Company rule in India to enhance and further the cause of " Oriental research" (in this case, research into India and the surrounding regions). It was founded by the philologist Will ...

. In 1924 he returned to Ireland to become the first director of research in the ''Discovery'' Investigations. He was Director of the

Marine Biological Association The Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom (MBA) is a learned society with a scientific laboratory that undertakes research in marine biology. The organisation was founded in 1884 and has been based in Plymouth since the Citadel Hil ...

from 1936 to 1945. Among the discoveries he made were the first

onychophora Onychophora (from , , "claws"; and , , "to carry"), commonly known as velvet worms (for their velvety texture and somewhat wormlike appearance) or more ambiguously as peripatus (after the first described genus, ''Peripatus''), is a phylum of el ...

n from the Indian region which he named as ''

Typhloperipatus williamsoni ''Typhloperipatus'' is a genus of velvet worm in the family Peripatidae, containing the sole species ''Typhloperipatus williamsoni''. This genus contains the only species in the phylum Onychophora found in South Asia. This species is also strikin ...

''. He died in

Plymouth Plymouth ( ) is a port city status in the United Kingdom, city and unitary authority in Devon, South West England. It is located on Devon's south coast between the rivers River Plym, Plym and River Tamar, Tamar, about southwest of Exeter and ...

, Devon in 1945. The National Marine Biological Library at the Marine Biological Association hold some of hi
scientific and personal papers
in th

Frogs '' Philautus kempii'' and '' Bufoides kempi'' are named after him; '' Philautus kempiae'' is named after his wife. In 2018, researchers from the

have named a new species of crab, ''Teretamon kempi'', discovered from Namdapha, Arunachal Pradesh after him.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kemp, Stanley Wells 1882 births 1945 deaths British carcinologists Scientists from London English marine biologists Fellows of the Royal Society People educated at St Paul's School, London Alumni of Trinity College Dublin Victoria Medal recipients 20th-century British zoologists