Important personalitiesBack

Bond was born in Philadelphia on January 4, 1900. His interest in natural history was spurred at an expedition his father, Francis E. Bond, undertook in 1911 to the Orinoco Delta. Bond was originally educated in Concord, New Hampshire, but after the death of his mother he moved with his father to England in 1914. There he studied at Harrow and later Cambridge University, where he obtained a B.A in 1922. After graduating he moved back to the United States and worked for a banking firm for three years in Philadelphia. An interest in natural history prompted him to quit and accept a place on an expedition to the Amazon run by the Academy of Natural Sciences.[1] Subsequently he worked as an ornithologist at the Academy of Natural Sciences in that city, rising to become curator of birds there. He was an expert in Caribbean birds and wrote the definitive book on the subject: Birds of the West Indies, first published in 1936.

Bond won the Institute of Jamaica's Musgrave Medal in 1952; the Brewster Medal of the American Ornithologists Union in 1954; and the Leidy Medal of the Academy of Natural Sciences in 1975. He died in the Chestnut Hill Hospital in Philadelphia at age 89. He is interred in the church yard at Church of the Messiah in Gwynedd Valley, PA.

Ian Fleming, who was a keen bird watcher living in Jamaica, was familiar with Bond's book, and chose the name of its author for the hero of Casino Royale in 1953, apparently because he wanted a name that sounded 'as ordinary as possible'. Fleming wrote to the real Bond's wife, "It struck me that this brief, unromantic, Anglo-Saxon and yet very masculine name was just what I needed, and so a second James Bond was born." He also contacted the real James Bond about using his name in the books and Bond replied to him, "Fine with it." At some point during one of Fleming's visits to Jamaica he met with the real Bond and his wife as shown in a made for DVD documentary about Fleming. A short clip was shown with Fleming, Bond and his wife. Also in his novel Dr. No Fleming referenced Bond's work by basing a large Ornithological Sanctuary on Dr. No's island in the Bahamas. In 1964, Fleming gave Bond a first edition copy of You Only Live Twice signed "To the real James Bond, from the thief of his identity".

In the 2002 Bond film Die Another Day, the fictional Bond, played by Pierce Brosnan, can be seen examining Birds of the West Indies in an early scene that takes place in Havana, Cuba. The author's name (James Bond) on the front cover is obscured. In the same film, when Bond first meets Jinx (Halle Berry), he introduces himself as an ornithologist.