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Gerald Durrell
Gerald Malcolm Durrell was a British naturalist, writer, zookeeper, conservationist, and television presenter. He was born in Jamshedpur in British India, and moved to England when his father died in 1928. In 1935 the family moved to Corfu, and stayed there for four years, before the outbreak of World War II forced them to return to the UK. In 1946 he received an inheritance from his father's will…
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culture · British naturalist and writer (1925–1995) · writer · conservationist · presenter · naturalist · zoologist · traveler · scientific collector · screenwriter · also Gerald Durrell, Gerald Malcolm Durrell, Durrell
Born 7 January 1925 · Died 30 January 1995 · Q310400
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2026· 1 entry
2025· 2 entries
Phys.org: New species of beetle named in honor of Gerald Durrell
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The Financial: Gerald Durrell’s Centenary: a year of celebrations starts today
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2010· 1 entry
Durrell's vontsira, a carnivoran species related to the brown-tailed mongoose, from Lake Alaotra, Madagascar, was named after Gerald Durrell, "inspirational writer and conservationist", by Joanna Durbin and others
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1995· 1 entry
Died 1995-01-30.
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1994· 1 entry
And received a liver transplant, but died the following January
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1993· 1 entry
Awarded Goncourt des animaux (1993).
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1986· 2 entries
Durrell had hip-replacement surgery in a bid to counter arthritis, and the following year the other hip was also replaced
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Provided commentary for another television series, Ourselves and Other Animals, and was also the subject of a documentary, Durrell's Ark, which aired in 1988
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1984· 3 entries
At which point the Trust might have been forced to close down
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Founded the Durrell Conservation Academy, to train conservationists in the practice of captive breeding
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Durrell established the Durrell Conservation Academy at the zoo headquarters in Jersey, with the goal of providing training in captive breeding methods to help re-establish breeding populations of animals in their home e
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1981· 1 entry
Durrell filmed Ark on the Move for Canadian television
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1979· 1 entry
With Durrell sharing screenplay credits
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1977· 1 entry
Met Lee McGeorge, a zoology student working on a Ph
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1976· 1 entry
Separated from his wife; they were divorced in 1979, and Durrell remarried, to Lee McGeorge, an American zoologist
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1973· 1 entry
Durrell visited the US on a three-month fundraising tour, and while there arranged the creation of the Wildlife Preservation Trust International (WPTI), an organisation intended to funnel American donations to the Trust
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1964· 1 entry
After a holiday in Corfu, Durrell and the BBC arranged a trip to Sierra Leone with the BBC to film a documentary about animal collecting
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1963· 1 entry
Control of the zoo was turned over to the Jersey Wildlife Preservation Trust
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1962· 1 entry
Durrell and the BBC collaborated on an expedition with the goal of a television series that focused on conservation issues
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1961· 1 entry
And the BBC commissioned another series, called Zoo Packet, the same summer
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1960· 2 entries
As A Zoo in My Luggage to good reviews and became one of his most popular books
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And 1961 took on several more writing projects to bring in money
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1955· 2 entries
Gerald and Jacquie visited Lawrence in Cyprus for two months, planning to make two films for television; Gerald had considered Cyprus as a possible location for the zoo he wanted to establish one day
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Durrell began planning another collecting expedition
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1953· 1 entry
And three years later he published My Family and Other Animals, which became a bestseller
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1952· 1 entry
Called "My Island Tutors", in which he had described four of the tutors he had had on Corfu, but had made no other use of his pre-war memories
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1950· 1 entry
Was free to marry without her parents' permission
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1949· 1 entry
Durrell had met Jacquie Wolfenden, the nineteen-year-old daughter of the proprietors of a hotel in Manchester where he stayed while doing business with Belle Vue Zoo
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1946· 1 entry
Received an inheritance from his father's will that he used to fund animal-collecting trips to the British Cameroons and British Guiana
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1937· 1 entry
The family moved again, this time to a villa overlooking Halikiopoulou Lagoon that had been built as a residence for the British governor of the Ionian Islands
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1935· 1 entry
The family moved to Corfu, and stayed there for four years, before the outbreak of World War II forced them to return to the UK
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1932· 1 entry
Louisa moved them again, to a smaller house in Bournemouth, and the following year she enrolled him at Wychwood School
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1926· 1 entry
Was large and expensive to run, and in 1930 Louisa moved the family to a flat attached to the Queen's Hotel in Upper Norwood, also in south London
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1925· 1 entry
Born 1925-01-07.
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