William J. Clench

William James Clench (24 October 1897 – 22 February 1984) was an American malacologist, professor at Harvard University and curator of the mollusk collection in the malacology department of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard.

William James Clench
William James Clench in 1931
Born	(1897-10-24)24 October 1897 Brooklyn
Died	22 February 1984(1984-02-22) (aged 86)
Nationality	American
Alma mater	University of Michigan Harvard University
Scientific career
Fields	malacology
Institutions	Museum of Comparative Zoology
Academic advisors	William Morton Wheeler

Early life

Clench was born in Brooklyn, but was largely raised in Massachusetts.

In 1913 he entered the Huntington School in Boston. While there, he often engaged in bug collecting, and would show his collections to Charles Willison Johnson at the Boston Society of Natural History.

Johnson introduced Clench to such men as William F. Clapp, who was the curator of mollusks at the Museum of Comparative Zoology (MCZ).

Education

Clench received his undergraduate education at Michigan State College (now Michigan State University), graduating in 1921. He spent the summer studying mollusks on Sanibel Island and then began study at Harvard under William Morton Wheeler.

He received his master's degree in entomology in 1923.

He then went on to pursue his PhD at the University of Michigan, in Ann Arbor, in mollusk study, with a Hinsdale Fellowship. He finished his PhD work in 1953.

Personal life

In 1924 Clench married Julia Helmich, a resident of East Lansing, Michigan whom he met while attending Michigan Agricultural College.

Their eldest son, Harry Kendon Clench (1925–1979), would become a well-known lepidopterist at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh.

Career

Clench left Ann Arbor in 1925, to take a position at the Kent Scientific Museum. In 1926 he joined the Museum of Comparative Zoology, where he remained until 1966.

Much of Clench's work was done with Ruth D. Turner. Jointly they introduced about 70 new taxa, and the two of them (together and independently) introduced a total of approximately 500 new taxa.

Species named in honor of Clench

A species of lizard, Sphaerodactylus clenchi, is named in honor of William J. Clench.^[1]

Bibliography

Clench published over 400 scientific papers, and was the founding editor of Johnsonia. He also served as the third president of the American Malacological Union.

• Clench WJ (1966). "Pomacea bridgesi (Reeve) in Florida". The Nautilus 79: 105. – This report was in fact Pomacea diffusa.
• Clench WJ (1968). "Notes on species of Urocoptis described by George C. Spence". Proceedings of the Malacological Society of London 38: 101–102. abstract.

References

1. Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. ISBN 978-1-4214-0135-5. ("Clench", p. 55).

Sources

• Abbott RT (1984). "A Farewell to Bill Clench". The Nautilus 98 (2): 55–58.

External links

• Biography of William Clench
• Bibliography of taxa introduced by Clench or Turner