David Roden Buxton

David Roden Buxton FSA (26 February 1910 – 17 November 2003) was an entomologist and employee of the British Council. He is best known for his books on Russian architecture, the ancient churches of Ethiopia, and the wooden churches of Eastern Europe. Early life and education Buxton was born in 1910 in London to Charles Roden Buxton and Dorothy Frances Buxton (née Jebb). His parents met when they were both students at Cambridge University; his father Charles studied Classics at Trinity College while his mother, Dorothy Jebb, read for a degree in Philosophy and Moral Sciences at Newnham College. They married in 1904 in Cambridge before settling in London. Buxton’s father Charles was a lawyer and a parliamentarian, firstly as a Liberal MP then as a member of the Labour party. Both Charles and Dorothy were members of the Society of Friends, and Dorothy, described as a humanitarian and social activist, co-founded the Save the Children Fund with her sister Eglantyne Jebb. David Buxton was educated at Leighton Park Quaker School, with his early education including a year at a school in the Swiss Alps, and Trinity College. At Cambridge University he read Natural Sciences, specialising in entomology, and graduated with a BA in 1931 and an MA in 1936. Career Buxton travelled extensively both for his career and privately. After leaving university he worked in Kenya and Uganda researching locusts, took part in a Natural History Museum expedition to the Ruwenzori Mountains, and, working with the Imperial Institute of Entomology, he discovered a previously unrecorded species of beetles that bear his name.