Born in 1874 the son of a distinguished Barrister, and from an early age showed a keen interest in natural history. Educated at St. Paul's School, London where he won a prize for a collection of beetles taken in the school playground. Went to Magdalen College, Oxford where he read Natural Science taking his B.A. degree in Botany in 1896 and was awarded a half blue for cycling. After graduating he decided that the Law might be a suitable career and after qualifying he was called to the Bar in 1898. A little over a year later he decided to return to natural science, this time to zoology. He had been impressed by the lack of field courses in this subject at Oxford compared with those in botany, and this influenced his decision. Appointed Assistant Naturalist at the Marine Biological Station at Plymouth, but soon after his marriage in 1902 took up the post of Director of the Sutton Broad Laboratory, famous as a pioneer freshwater biological station.

It was while working at Sutton Broad that Balfour-Browne, encouraged by David Sharp, made a survey of the water beetles of the area of East Norfolk, and became aware of their distinct habitat associations. In 1906 he took up the post of Lecturer and Demonstrator in Belfast. Moved in 1913 to Cambridge where he was Lecturer in Entomology, a post which he held until 1925. His successful course was eventually published as A Text-Book of Practical Entomology (1932). In 1925 he decided to retire from teaching to devote his full time to water beetles, and with this in view moved to Somerset. Shortly after, however, he was persuaded to accept the Chair of Entomology at Imperial College, where he remained until finally retiring in 1930.

Balfour-Browne’s revision of the difficult section of Haliplus Latreille appeared in 1915 (Ann.Mag.nat.Hist., (8) 15, 7-124), while his first account of the Deronectes depressus-elegans complex was published in 1919 (ibid., (9) 3, 293-308). Full time work on the water beetles enabled him to gather together a mass of information which served as the basis for his well known three volume work British Water Beetles, published by the Ray Society between 1940 and 1958 The last decade of the Professor's life brought a small number of Papers covering such subjects as distribution and routes of arrival of British water beetles, in which he was particularly interested, and, stimulated by Kevan's revision of Helophorus F., on taxonomy. His final paper was published only weeks before his death at the advanced age of 93.

Balfour-Browne's collection, including his note books and card indexes, passed to the RSM in 1962 and Pedersen (2002), 84, 137, lists correspondence in the RES with C. Wainwright and D.Jackson. There is a detailed obituary by Robert Angus in Ent.mon.Mag., 103, 1967, 286-288. from which much of the above is taken, and a further account by A.R. Waterson in Yearbook of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 1966-7, 8-10. His own autobiographical work Water Beetles and Other Things (Dumfries 1962) also gives a great deal of information. The Balfour-Browne Club is named after him. (MD 9/01, 11/09)