Footprint Press and the East London Museum cordially invite you to the launch of Curator and Crusader by Mike Bruton at the Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer Hall, East London Museum on Saturday 29 June 2019 at 15h00. RSVP derekh@elmuseum.za.org.

The Book: Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer, ornithologist, botanist, anthropologist and museum curator, was the first curator of the East London Museum. She was acclaimed for her research on birds and plants as well as on isiXhosa customs. She created stunning displays, exhibitions and dioramas that were well ahead of their time. The discovery of the coelacanth, as well as of the fossilised skeleton of a rare mammal-like reptile, ancient human footprints and a prehistoric human skull, would thrust her and her museum into the international limelight.

The Author: Mike Bruton studied ichthyology at Rhodes and researched freshwater fishes in Africa and beyond while also retaining a keen interest in the Coelacanth. He has published his autobiography, When I was a Fish, Tales of an Ichthyologist as well as The Annotated Old Fourlegs. The Updated Story of the Coelacanth, The Amazing Coelacanth and The Fishy Smiths. A Biography of JLB Smith.

Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer (1907-2004) received an honorary doctorate in Science honoris causa from Rhodes University in 1971. The citation in her honour, read by the public orator, Professor Jack Gledhill, ended: ‘We are thus today honouring one who, largely by her own efforts, has built up a cultural institution of which the Border, the Eastern Cape and South Africa are justly proud, the East London Museum; and who has made important contributions to South Africa's scientific and cultural life.’