Walters, Neville Emlyn Morris (Nev)   (1916 - 2004)

Born on 2 March 1916 (possibly Derbyshire/Leicestershire, UK); died on 13 April 2004, in Melbourne (aged 88)

Despite completing a law course and articling for five years, Nev's heart was not in that type of work. So he resigned and found a job teaching English to adults in Germany. There he became interested in fungi. This was in 1938.

He escaped Germany after the borders were sealed in 1939 and served in the British Army.

After escaping by ship as Singapore was falling to the Japanese Army, he was taken to Australia. During three weeks shore leave in Melbourne he met his future wife, Jean.

The war kept them apart until 1946 when he returned to Jean and enrolled for a science degree in botany at the University of Melbourne.

After graduating in 1950 and being hired by CSIRO, he returned to England to work for one year at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and the Commonwealth Mycological Institute.

Upon his return to Melbourne, he began his work with CSIRO Division of Forest Products in the field of timber preservation research.

He started with a tiny number of culture collections and eventually established a collection of fungal specimens which was described, by Roy Wattling of the Edinburgh Botanic Gardens, as an internationally significant collection of wood inhabiting and wood destroying fungi.

The fungal herbarium and culture collections were a labour of love for Nev who was allocated a maximum of 20% of his time to deal with these collections.

For many years, the herbarium collection (about 5,000 specimens representing 832 named species in 204 genera) was stored in cabinets over DFP offices in a space Nev referred to as his 'mycelium' (a play on 'my ceiling'). The culture collection of some 2,100 cultures was one of the largest most diverse collections of wood-inhabiting fungi in the world.

When, in 1999, changes at CSIRO threatened the long-term viability of the collections, Gary Johnson (Forest & Wood Products Research & Development Corp.) ensured that the majority of the herbarium material would be protected by expediting its transfer to the Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne.
The culture collection was transferred to Ensis (a joint venture between CSIRO Forestry and Forest Products and Forest Research Australasia Ltd).

Nev retired from CSIRO in 1977.

For the next 25 years he dedicated himself to his expanding family and to local schools as a Christian religious education teacher.

Each year his local newspaper would advertise field walks to be conducted by Nev around Blackburn Lake Reserve in Melbourne.

He published:
Marks, G.C.; Fuhrer, B.A.; and Walters, N.E.M., 'Tree Diseases in Victoria' Forests Commission, Victoria, (1982)
Walters, N. E. M., 'Australian house fungi' CSIRO Division of Building Research, (1973)

Source: Extracted from:
Gary Johnson, 'Vale Nev Walters', Australasian Mycologist 24, 29-46
The Ryerson Index
www.freebmd.org.uk/cgi/information.pl?cite=6XXFPVpdR3GloG6Jm5o0VQ&scan=1
Portrait Photo: 1980s, Leader Community Newspapers

Collecting localities for 'Walters, N.E.M.' from AVH (2024)

Data from 1,249 specimens