Richard Sidney Richmond Fitter

Who was Richard Sidney Richmond Fitter?

Richard Sidney Richmond Fitter was a British naturalist and author. He was an expert on wildflowers and authored several guides for amateur naturalists. He was born in Streatham, London in 1913 and was educated at Eastbourne College and the London School of Economics, where he became a research assistant to Ivor Jennings. He was recruited to the Institute for Political and Economic Planning in 1936 by fellow ornithologist Max Nicholson, and in 1940 moved to the social research organisation Mass Observation to investigate civilian morale for the Ministry of Information. During the Second World War he worked at the operation research section of the Coastal Command. Then in 1945 he was appointed secretary of the Wildlife Conservation Special Committee of the Ministry of Town and Country Planning and his first book, London's Natural History, was published.

In 1946 Fitter was became assistant editor of The Countryman and moved from London to Burford, Oxfordshire, where his writing career flourished. He wrote a number of field guides, other books, articles and notes.