Gerald Stokell was a New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

 amateur ichthyologist

Ichthyology

Ichthyology is the branch of zoology devoted to the study of fish. This includes skeletal fish , cartilaginous fish , and jawless fish...

.

Early life

Stokell was born at Prebbleton, near Christchurch

Christchurch

Christchurch is the largest city in the South Island of New Zealand, and the country's second-largest urban area after Auckland. It lies one third of the way down the South Island's east coast, just north of Banks Peninsula which itself, since 2006, lies within the formal limits of...

, New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

, on 20 June 1890 to Edmund Stokell and Jane (Née

NEE

NEE is a political protest group whose goal was to provide an alternative for voters who are unhappy with all political parties at hand in Belgium, where voting is compulsory.The NEE party was founded in 2005 in Antwerp...

 Pasche). He lived there for his whole life. He attended Broadfields Primary School, and was a keen trout angler.

Memberships

• Council of the North Canterbury Acclimatisation Society
• Staff of the Canterbury Museum
• Secretary of the Canterbury branch of the Royal Society of New Zealand
  Royal Society of New Zealand
  The Royal Society of New Zealand , known as the New Zealand Institute before 1933, was established in 1867 to co-ordinate and assist the activities of a number of regional research societies including the Auckland Institute, the Wellington Philosophical Society, the Philosophical Institute of...
  
  

An direct man with forceful opinions, he left the Acclimatisation Society stating:

Their sole qualification for safe-guarding the welfare of wild creatures [is] the possession of a desire to kill them.

In 1941 Stokell's smelt

Stokell's smelt

Stokell's smelt, Stokellia anisodon, is a smelt, the only member of the genus Stokellia, found in rivers between the Waiau and Waitaki Rivers on the east coast of the South Island of New Zealand. Their length is between 7 and 9 cm.-References:...

, Stokellia anisodon, was named after him.

Works

• Freshwater fishes of New Zealand, 1955
• Freshwater and diadromous fishes of New Zealand, 1972