The Biodiversity Surveys, 1912 and 1944, and Natural History Society publications

The Natural History Society at Radley College was founded on February 6th 1884. It comprised six sections, Botanical, Entomological, Geological, Ornithological, Archaeological, Meteorological.

Fieldwork and recording were always as important as collecting, culminating in several publications from the logbooks of the Society. The earliest of these was The fauna and flora of Radley and the neighbourhood, by the Society, Oxford 1906. The Radley District: its history, botany, entomology and geology, followed in 1912, edited by the Warden, T. Field, with specialist sections contributed by Dons and an Old Radleian, geologist M. Odling. In the 1930s there were two in-house magazines, Field Club and The Radley Naturalist, a tradition that was revived in the 1960s with Scope. During the 1930s Radley succeeded in becoming an official bird-ringing station for the newly created international survey. In the 1940s the Society published a comprehensive survey of local wildlife.

From 2022, the school has been working with local environment groups to conduct biodiversity surveys of the local area, comparing them with the earlier publications. Read more