To Professor A.F. O’Farrell on his 70th birthday

A short biography is given of A.F. O’FARRELL (bom 9 Jan. 1917, Assam, India; inaugural Professor of Zoology at the University of New England, Australia), a student, and mentor of students, of Australian Odonata, with notes on his work and a list of his papers on dragonflies. ANTONY FREDERICK LOUIS O’FARRELL was born on 9 January, 1917, at Badlipar, Assam, India, of Irish parentage; his father spent most of his life in Assam, working for the Brahmaputra Steam Navigation Company. An only child. Tony accompanied his parents to England when his father retired in 1920-21. His father’s early death, and his own serious illness, dogged Tony’s childhood and delayed the start of his formal education until he was 12-13 years old. His informal education, however, started during his convalescence in a farmhouse surrounded by the largely unspoilt forests of the Weald, where his zeal for the study of insects was kindled. His entomological activities continued at Wimbledon College in London and, in due course. he graduated from the Royal College of Science in 1939, with First Class Honours and the Forbes Memorial Medal in Entomology. Plans for a Ph. D. were thwarted by, in Tony’s words, "one Adolf Hitler, who decided to turn on World War II in spite of my good intentions ’’. Declared unfit for flying duties, Tony became a part-time soldier in the Berkshire and East Sussex units of the Home Guard ("Dad's Army"!), while working, from 1940-42, on problems caused by elaterid beetle larvae (wireworms) to crops grown on old pastures ploughedfor conversion to arable land. By 1942, the emergency storage of wheat and other foodstuffs, often in unsuitable places, had produced major problems with insect pests, and Tony was posted to Belfast to work on them. There he met and. in 1944, married MARY ISABEL MILLEN.