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At age six, Jack Lightbourn was initiated into the world of ocean molluscs through his relationship with his grandfather, who took him shell hunting and coral collecting in the shallow bays of Bermuda. Two of the richest areas were Castle Harbour and Harrington Sound. His collection grew at a modest rate until the end of World War II, by which time Castle Harbour was no longer the rich haven of previous years due to the extensive dredging to build the U.S. Army airfield. In the early 1950's, Jack collected shells seriously with his close friend, Arthur Guest, who also was a keen collector specializing in the smaller varieties referred to as micro-shells.
By 1965, their collections had grown considerably: Arthur Guest's to 450 species and Jack's to 300. Three years passed without them finding one additional new species and this inspired them to try dredging and trapping in deep water - in depths of 300 feet to 400 feet and in depths of 800 feet to 1,500 feet. Their efforts were immediately successful to the extent that during the next twenty years they added 300 new species to the Bermuda listing - ten of which were new to science. Three of these were named after Jack as follows: Pterynotus lightbourni, Fusinus lightbourni and Conus lightbourni. It was during this same period that Jack started to collect foreign shells comprising of cones, cowries, murexes and many other miscellaneous species.
Jack and Arthur had from the beginning decided to pool the Bermuda species, which resulted in this collection numbering some 756 species - the largest ever, in Bermuda. Jack's foreign collections now consisted of 5,000 species of which 20 percent were collected in foreign places, such as the Caribbean, New Caledonia, Hawaii, Guam and the Philippines to name a few. The remainder was acquired by purchase and trading. In his will, Arthur Guest left his entire collection to Jack. Jack presented a quantity of his magnificent collection, comprising 1,200 shells of 1,000 species to the Bermuda Underwater Exploration Institute (BUEI) where they are displayed in a room named for Jack, The Lightbourn Shell Collection. Of these, 110 are from Bermuda, the remainder of the shells is foreign. In his private life, Jack worked for the Bank of Bermuda, and the last nine years at the Bank as General Manager. He retired at the end of 1990 after 50 years as a Banker but still pursues his lifelong hobby of shell collecting. As a Life Trustee of BUEI, Jack can frequently be found on the premises where he enjoys meeting and talking to visitors about his lifelong hobby.