TRIBUTES have been paid by fellow Alton Natural History Society members to naturalist and photographer Arthur Jollands, who died peacefully at home on May 26. He was 90.

Arthur Jollands was born on May 1, 1926, and settled in Alton in 1944.

Shortly afterward he became a member of the Alton Natural History Society, soon taking on the leadership of the mammal and junior sections and remained a member for the rest of his life.

He loved the countryside and this, and his passion for natural history, also led to many years of volunteering at Gilbert White’s House and Garden in Selborne.

On his arrival in Alton, Arthur worked at first on aircraft at Lasham but later decided to pursue his two hobbies of natural history and photography. His interest was wide-ranging and he collected a great variety of specimens, including discarded snake skins, birds’ eggs (which was perfectly legal in the 1940s and 1950s) and animal skulls and bones. He took these and his photographs round to schools across the south of England where he mounted exhibitions and gave talks.

He had an extensive knowledge and his enthusiastic manner appealed to children and encouraged many to develop an interest in natural history. He cultivated the inhabitants of a badger sett, travelling every night to feed them with peanuts so that they almost fed from his hand, and he would take parties of schoolchildren along with their teachers to watch them.

Arthur sourced the wildlife for a number of films and for a long time worked with adders, which he always maintained were placid creatures. He said that it took him 32 years to get bitten by one.

As a photographer, Arthur was a perfectionist and would spend hours waiting for a particular shot and repeated his efforts year after year trying to improve on it. He was often to be found in Alton Photographic, when it was in Market Street, discussing photographic technique. He left a large collection of transparencies and prints and refused to embrace the new digital photography technology to the end.

More recently, Arthur was “rescued” by a concerned passer-by who found him on his hands and knees in his front garden and thought he had collapsed. He was in fact trying to get a close-up shot of a bee and was quite bemused by their concern!

Arthur was amazingly generous with his time and his knowledge and will be greatly missed by his fellow members and his many friends.