Biographical dictionary
The Biographical Dictionary of British Coleopterists is compiled and maintained by Michael Darby. The Dictionary can be accessed below, and see also the additional information provide by Michael:
Michael would be pleased to hear from anyone wishing to make corrections or alterations to the Dictionary, which will be fully acknowledged. Email Michael Darby or write to Michael at 33 Bedwin Street, SALISBURY, Wiltshire, SP1 3UT.
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Name |
Dates | Biography | |
|---|---|---|---|
| RIPPON, Robert Henry Fernando | 1836 – 16 January 1917 | Best known as the publisher of Icones Ornithopterorum (1898-1906), the first monograph on bird wing butterflies, but he also interested himself in other insects, molluscs and minerals. His insect collection amounting to 105,765 specimens, of which 56,828 are Coleoptera, is in the NMW. There is a good account of Rippon by Ashley Kirk-Spriggs in Archives of Natural History 22(1), 1995, pp.97-118. He was born in Bocking, Essex and appears to have started his professional life as a ‘Professor of Musick’ and he published some light songs and piano music. But it is clear that he was already interested in insects because in 1861 he advertised in EWI for funding to support a collecting trip to South America. This took place after March 1861 but before June 1862 when he set off for the Near East also with the intention of collecting insects for his sponsors. In 1864 he published a book Victor; or lessons of Life. A Tale founded on fact which was based on his travels and in which he describes Victor collecting beetles. A further expedition, to Algeria in c.1870, is documented in a letter he wrote to E.W.Janson now in the NHM. By 1871 Rippon was living in Cambridge and had become friendly with G.R.Crotch whose Catalogue of Coccinellidae he proof read and saw through the printers for Crotch while the latter was in America, By c.1877 he had moved to Brockley in South London and was making a living as an illustrator. The books he worked on included Godman and Salvin’s Biologia Centrali-Americana for which he produced plates of butterflies, beetles and Hemiptera. Later still (August 1909) he appears to have been living in Accrington, because a letter to E.W.Janson in the NHM mentions that he wanted to purchase cabinets for the entomological collection of his ‘friend’ J.W.Rimington which was housed in the Museum there. By the time of his death he was resident in Upper Norwood. Much of Rippon’s Coleoptera collections appear to have been acquired at auction As a result they include many specimens from other collectors which arelisted in detail by Kirke-Spriggs, pp.115-16 including A.R.Wallace, T.V.Wollaston. and C.Darwin and many foreign collectors. In 1910 Rippon appears to have been in financial difficulties, without a pension, and offered his collection of 106,000 insects, shells and minerals from most parts of the world for sale. He cannot have found a buyer however for it was eventually purchased by Lord Rhondda for a sum believed to be in excess of £1,000 from his widow. Rhondda then donated it to the NMW . According to an article by Adrian Amsden in Biological Curator’s Newsletter, 2(8), September 1980, the collection ‘must have contained a multitude of un-described species from Australia and South America but as there was no-one to curate it in Cardiff it remained almost undisturbed for the next fifty years. It presented the staff of the Department of Zoology with an insuperable problem and the cabinets and store boxes were moved from place to place but seldom opened. It is still relatively untouched but as cabinets and store boxes disintegrated much of it has been transferred to new storage in the last ten years....’ (MD 11/04) | |
| RIVERS, James John | 6 January 1824 – 16 December 1913 | Well known Californian natural historian who described several species of American Coleoptera, but who was born in Winchester and studied medicine at London University before moving to America in c. 1867. He was sufficiently interested in entomology whilst a student to join the ESL and to attend meetings there, and he subsequently became acquainted with many of the leading British naturalists of his day including T. Huxley, C. Darwin, A. Wallace, T.V.Wollaston, F. Walker and G. Crotch. In America he was particularly well-known as a member of the Arthrozoic Club, which was associated with the California Academy of Sciences, and as Curator of Natural History in the University of California. A list of the insects he described is included in Agassiz (1931) p.747. Rivers’s Coleoptera were sold in Europe, the Cicindelidae through Walther Horn, the Carabidae through H.Roeschke to the Berlin Museum, and the remainder through Kraatz to the Dahlem Entomological Institute. (MD 11/04) | |
| ROBERTS, Arthur William Rymer | 1 December 1879 – 9 April 1955 | Born at Manchester and spent his childhood in Windermere. Educated at Harrow and Cambridge where he read law and became a barrister. His interest in natural history was such, however, that he soon gave this up and returned to Cambridge as a postgraduate student of biology. Subsequently became a farmer at Crook near Kendal with a special interest in economic entomology. During the first World War he moved to Rothamstead where he worked on aphids and elateridae, particularly species of Agriotes and Athous on which he published 5 papers between 1915-1928. Shortly after the War he married Ruth Gimingham and moved to Cambridge where he took up a post at the Molteno Institute for Parasitology. Whilst there he became interested in beetle larvae and in particular those of the Curculionidae on which he published several papers including his ‘Key to the principal families of Coleoptera in the larval stage’ (Bull. Ent. Research, 21, 1930, pp.57-72) and an important paper on Erotylid larvae (Trans.RESL., 88, 1939, pp.89-117) both illustrated by numerous drawings which he prepared himself. F.van Emden, from whose obituary of Roberts in EMM., 91, 1955, p.168 the above is taken, commented that his papers were ‘a model of thoroughness and form important contributions... His ‘Key to the principal families...’ [is] the first comprehensive modern key...’ (MD 11/04) | |
| ROBERTS, Barry | Lived at Deganwy, Gwynedd. Made a collection of British beetles in 16 storeboxes which in 1982 was housed at the National Trust’s Penrhyn Castle, Bangor. Many of the specimens are unlabelled. (Information from Keith Alexander). (MD 11/04) | ||
| ROBERTS, M | Published ‘Prionus corarius in Hertfordshire’ in EMM., 95, 1959, p.108. He lived at Newton Abbot in Devon (Information from Trevor James). (MD 11/04) | ||
| ROBERTS, W.G.J. | Gave beetles from the Gold Coast to Birmingham Museum on 26 October 1923 and 7 May 1924. He worked at the time for the firm of Russell and Co.. (MD 11/04) | ||
| ROBERTSON, Miss | Gave a collection of Coleoptera to Berwick Museum on 8 September 1882 (Davis and Brewer (1986) p.126). (MD 11/04) | ||
| ROBINSON, Edward W. | 20 January 1835 – 10 August 1877 | Little seems to be known about Robinson who was one of the foremost entomological illustrators of his day and whose steel engravings in Trans. SL; Ent. Ann.; J. Linn Soc., Ann. Mag. nat. Hist., etc. included many beetles. [There are some original Lepidoptera drawings by him in the NHM]. There is an obituary in EMM.,14, 1877, pp.118-119. (MD 11/04) | |
| ROBINSON, Herbert Christopher | 1874 – 1929 | I assume that this is the Robinson referred to by Fowler (1912) as taking Neocollyris species in Bukit, Besar, Nawngchik and Malaya. There is an obituary in J.fed. Malay St,. Mus., 16, 1930, pp.1-12, including a bibliography, which I have not seen. (MD 11/04) | |
| ROBINSON, K. |
He is listed by James,T.J. (2018) as providing a special contribution either in the form of a comprehensive site list or a substantial number of records (MD 1/22) |