New Zealand road inspector, born in New Zealand who was working in Fiji in the 1920s when the author, Casey Wood, commissioned him to paint the birds of that island. His paintings were used to illustrate the article by Casey Wood and Alexander Wetmore about ‘A collection of birds from the Fiji Islands’ in The Ibis 1925 (12) 1:814-55 and 1926 (12) 2:91-136 with figures, two of which (plates XXV-VI) depicted birds. Belcher’s drawings were done ‘ad naturam’, in 1923, at Suva and both the bird and the branch of which it was perched were coloured on the lithographs.

Casey Wood wrote, ‘In my quests I was greatly assisted by the artist Mr W J Belcher who accompanied me on several excursions to various islands of the group, and not only took many specimens but was able to prepare numerous sketches for his paintings of Fijian birds’. 127 original paintings by Belcher, C Bulling, E Cherverlange and A E Ward are now in Montreal McG B-WL. Wood continued, ‘These he depicted, to the number of ninety, with great fidelity, with their favourite food – insects, fruit, nuts – their usual roosting – or nesting places, and their proper surroundings , all skilfully drawn. In this way he truly pictured the colonial avifauna ad naturam. In addition, he proved to be an excellent and industrious taxidermist.’ His work was exhibited AOU 1924; 1925 ‘Fijian orange dove’ lent by the McGill University Library, and other Fijian birds in 1926.