Not British by birth but he is included because he lived in England for the last 22 years of his life (becoming naturalized in 1947), and although employed as a professional Dipterist, he was always more interested in beetles than flies. He was born in Amsterdam but moved to Germany two years later and from 1918-22 studied natural history at the University of Leipzig eventually obtaining the degree of Doctor of Philosophy there. He also obtained a teaching qualification but soon became a professional entomologist, first with Walther Horn at the Deutsches Entomologisches Institut in Berlin-Dhalem, and later in Halle. In 1927 he became Keeper of Entomology at the Natural History Museum, Dresden, but was dismissed from his post when the Nazis came to power in 1933. Van Emden was already known in this country for his work on Coleoptera and, helped by Sir Guy Marshall and G.J.Arrow, he came over here with his wife and family in 1936 and took up a post in the Imperial Institute of Entomology in the following year. Because there was no vacancy for a Coleopterist he started work on Diptera and continued with them for the rest of his life. Harold Oldroyd, who wrote his obituary in EMM., 94, 1958, pp.228-29, records that Van Emden never wholly embraced English customs and practices, and always had difficulties with the language. Van Emden is best known to Coleopterists for the publication of a major series of papers in the EMM on beetle larvae. Interestingly, no reference is made to these by Oldroyd in his obituary, but given that they involved the study of thousands of specimens in the NHM, and of others sent to him at the Institute/Museum by, for example, the ‘wireworm teams’ set up in 1945 as part of the ploughing-up campaign, it would seem that not all his official duties were confined to Diptera. These articles appeared, after a series of smaller papers , as follows: i: A Key to the Genera and most of the Species of British Cerambycid Larvae 75, 1939, pp.257-73, 76, 1940, pp.7-13; ii: Key to the British Lamellicorn Larvae 77, 1941, pp.117-27, 181-92; iii: Keys to the Families, 78, 1942, pp.206-26, 253-72 iv: Various small families, 79, 1943, pp.209-23,259-70; v: Elateridae, 80, 1944, pp.13-37; vi: Tenebrionidae, 83, 1947, pp.154-71, On the Larvae of Palorus, a supplement to vi: 84, 1948, p.10; and vi: Coccinellidae, 85, 1949, pp.265-83. It is possible that the appearance of Duffy’s work, which covered some of the same ground, might have discouraged Van Emden from producing more papers in the series. He also published an important paper on the Dipterous parasites of Coleoptera in ibid., 86, 1950, pp.182-206. (MD 12/04)