The collection was originally established in order to allow the owner to have access to specimens from a variety of taxa of different families from around the world for comparative purposes. Initially, this was because he was not allowed ready access (or any access in some cases) to museum material. Prior to the introduction of CITES in the 1970s he had an active international exchange programme and received a wide range of material from the USA, France and Thailand. Subsequent to this, foreign exchanges were curtailed and new additions were either fortuitous or as a result of specific collection for research purposes.The collection was later given wider scope aimed at:
- providing a wide variety of specimens illustrating the taxonomic diversity of reptiles and amphibians around the world;
- retaining herpetological research and education material and making it available in order to promote research and an understanding of herpetology in general.
An indication of the geographic scope of the collection is shown by the following map where the countries that were the source of specimens in the collection are coloured green.
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Themocracy