| OBITUARY - CHARLES COLES AND HUGH VAN CUTSEM
Pioneers of their time Morag Walker looks back at the life and achievements of Charles Coles, biologist and founder of the ICI Research Station, and Hugh Van Cutsem, GWCT trustee harles Coles OBE, VRD and former Director General of the Game Conservancy Trust (now the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust) died recently after a short illness. Charles Coles devoted his professional life to game management and conservation, in particular the survival of game in the era of intensive farming. He was Director General of the Game Conservancy Trust from 1960 to 1981, co-founded the International Union of Game Biology in 1954 and played an active role in the International Council for Game and Wildlife Conservation based in Paris. He embarked on his career in the 1930s, becoming personal assistant to Major HG Eley, who had founded the I.C.I. Game Research Department, funded by Eley cartridges. His main responsibility was the Partridge Trials Unit at Knebworth, which was investigating a serious outbreak of strongylosis in grey partridges. His career was interrupted by World War II when Charles joined the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve. After service in Malta and the North Sea he was given command of an MTB capable of 47 knots, in which he broke the speed record for a transit of the Suez Canal. This was just the start of many challenging operations in the eastern Mediterranean. Unfortunately, these were brought to an abrupt end by the sinking of his second MTB and his subsequent internment in PoW camps in Italy and then Germany. In 1947 he re-joined ICI and was appointed manager. Then began a varied and highly productive period in which he initiated training courses, lectured, wrote articles and frequently appeared on television. He also authored many books including Shooting Pigeons (1964), Game Conservation in a Changing Countryside (1968), The Complete Book of Game Conservation (1971) plus many more besides.
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Under the slogan of ‘Turning words into birds’ he became director of the Eley Game Advisory Service and travelled extensively visiting every country in Europe and many far beyond, including behind the Iron Curtain. In 1969 he became the first Director General of the Game Conservancy Trust and was responsible for expanding the Game Conservancy’s Sussex study on grey partridges. This was ground-breaking research and led by Dr Dick Potts, this important study was one of the first to identify the detrimental effects that pesticides were having on wildlife, particularly grey partridges. The Sussex study continues today and remains a lasting legacy of Charles Coles. Charles retired from the Trust in 1981 and was awarded the OBE for services to game conservation in 1984. He retired from the CIC in 1989. Charles Coles was an excellent raconteur and had many interests, including the arts and music. His private letters were punctuated by little drawings of red wine glasses at various stages of depletion. Charles Leslie Coles OBE, VRD, is survived by his wife Wendy and his son Julian and daughter Sarah.
“The Sussex study
continues today and remains a lasting legacy of Charles Coles”
14 | GAMEWISE • SPRING 2014
ugh Van Cutsem, who was a council member and Vice President of the GWCT for many years, died in September after a long illness. He played a vital role at a critical time when the Trust’s financial position meant that funding of essential research work was seriously threatened. As a consequence his chairing of the very successful 1991 Appeal committee raised several million pounds. When he bought 3,000 acres of the former Hilborough estate, near Swaffham, in 1986, Hugh began a 25-year programme to create the best conditions for game and wildlife. Overgrown hedges were cut back, and replanting was planned to produce good driven partridge shooting. Three gamekeepers were employed to implement the estate’s integrated game management strategy. It paid off and numbers of grey partridges increased at a rapid rate – as did the other farmland birds. The winner of the Laurent Perrier Wild Game Award in 1997, his Hilborough estate was home to the country’s highest density of breeding stone curlews. He demonstrated that good farming and conservation could thrive on the estate, which was also designated as a site of special scientific interest and part of the Breckland Special Protection Area. We used Hilborough as a study area for grey partridge work and we always received the fullest collaboration. Hugh’s knowledge and love of the wildlife at Hilborough shone through and he was always experimenting with new designs of cover crops. In 2004, Hugh Van Cutsem led the Trust’s Norfolk committee’s efforts to raise £130,000 to fund a five-year project to boost the grey partridge. He received further recognition for his work on grey partridges when his estate won the Mills & Reeve Grey Partridge Award in 2011. Hugh Bernard Edward van Cutsem was born on 21 July 1941, the son of Bernard van Cutsem, a racehorse trainer and breeder. He married Emilie van Ufford in 1971, who survives him with their four sons.
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