Biographical dictionary
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Name |
Dates | Biography | |
|---|---|---|---|
| WILLIAMS, Basil Samuel | 13 April 1891 – 12 February 1941 | Born at Finchley, the nephew of B.S.Williams, author of several books on plants including the Orchid Growers Manual. His first interest was in the Lepidoptera ,of which he formed a good collection, but after the First World War, in which he received a serious head injury, he turned his attention to Coleoptera. Following a meeting with Philip Harwood at the Verrall Supper in 1924 the two became firm friends and often collected together travelling as far as the Scottish Highlands. From 1931 Williams turned his attention mainly to the Hemiptera. He married Olive Kingsbury and they had a single child Brenda who married Charles Mackechnie-Jarvis. Among his other interests was philately and the growing of cacti. Four of the species described by Williams are now considered junior synonyms of older names but Atheta harwoodi, Gyrophaena williamsi and G. munsteri still stand.. The holotypes of the species described by Williams are in the NHM. At one time he had in his possession the F.Bates collection which he passed to the Plant Pathology Laboratory at Harpenden together with many specimens of his own after keeping ‘the pick’ of the specimens for himself. His collection (including the Bates’ specimens) was purchased by Liverpool Museum (42-13). A folder of ms material accompanying it includes a letter from Harry Britten to Dr Allan at the Museum ‘Have just had the offer of B.S.Williams Coleoptera collection... My friend E.C.Bedwell has seen Mrs Williams and tells me she appears inclined to entertain the idea of them going to Liverpool for say £50 I knew many of Williams smaller beetles as we did an extensive correspondence over many of them, he added many species to the British list and the greater part of his smaller beetles have been dissected...’ Other notes in this folder by Ian Wallace indicate: that Britten worked on the collection; that the main period covered is 1924-30 but that specimens from other collectors including Joy, Fowler, Donisthorpe, Newbery, and Sharp fall outside those dates; that his major interest was the Staphylinidae, particularly Atheta; and that F.Balfour Browne, Deville, Britten, Gridelli, Strand and others all made determinations for him. There is also a note by P.F.Lingwood dated 1976 which states that Williams was unfamiliar with the concept of types. Four collecting diaries covering the periods May 1909 -1914, September 1921 - August 1923, September 1923 - May 1926 and May 1926 – 1931 are also at Liverpool. I have also seen specimens collected by Williams in the Museum at Cambridge. There is an obituary by Philip Harwood in EMM., 77, 1941, p.93. (MD 12/04) | |
| WILLIAMS, S.H. | K.C.Lewis tells me that specimens collected by Williams are in his collection. (MD 12/06) | ||
| WILLIAMS, Stanley Alexander. | 31 August 1933 - 16 February 2021 |
Listed as a subscriber to the Coleopterists Newsletter in 1981 (MD 1/22) |
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| WILLIAMSON | Mentioned by Stephens (1828) p.179. (MD 12/04) | ||
| WILLOUGHBY ELLIS, Herbert | 28 June 1869 – 15 October 1943 |
Sometimes confused with J.W.Ellis. Ellis was born in Woodville, Burton-upon-Trent. He attended Nuneaton School and Coppers Hill College, and worked as an electrician, founding Ellis and Ward Ltd. of Portugal Street, London. In 1890 he joined the Birmingham Nat Hist and Phil Soc. He served as its Vice-President in 1907, 1910-1939 and as President in 1908 . He was known as a geologist and fossil collector as well as an entomologist an interest he acquired at school. Through his role at the society (latterly merging with Birmingham Ent Soc) he was instrumental in the founding of a natural history collection at Birmingham Museum, originally under the City Art Gallery. Ellis wrote the Coleoptera section of the VCH for Warwickshire and assisted with other VCH volumes, but published little else his most important paper being 'Criocephaluis polonicus, Motsch. a genus and species of Longicorn Coleoptera new to Britain (ERJV, 1903, 259-261) which he took as larvae in the New Forest with F. Gilbert Smith. (species now synonymised with Arhopalus ferus Mulsant) Ellis's main collection is in the Yorkshire museum purchased in 1945 and arranged by Walter Douglas Hincks and Reginald Wagstaffe (see Hincks’ entry below). It is an extensive collection of entomology, mostly coleoptera but with large numbers of Hemiptera and Hymenoptera (especially ants) as well. Simms’ (1968) estimate of approximately 100,000 specimens (across all orders) in the collection probably holds true. South of England provenance for most specimens. Denton (1993) estimates 80,000 Coleoptera specimens including 12,282 specimens of Carabidae (covered in his publication). Ellis was working with many other collectors, which are listed in the introduction of Denton 1993 – which is based on a rearrangement of the Ellis collection. Notably W G Blatch who was a correspondent and Blatch’s entomological diaries (also in the Y0rkshire Museum collection) note the acquisition of drawers and boxes of material from Blatch. The paper archive at the Yorkshire Museum associated with Ellis includes field diaries, lecture notes, and ephemera. Also three books of site lists: Coleoptera of Cannock Chase, Coleoptera of the New Forest, and Coleoptera of Huntington. Denton (1993) is important to an understanding his collection in the Yorkshire Museum.(Information from Adam Parker). Ellis gave beetles collected by G.Gulliver to Birmingham Museum (10 August 1914) and also beetles collected by himself at Crowthorne (24 January 1935). His material is also in the Blatch collection there. A letter copy at Liverpool dated 5 July 1932 from him (then living at Speldhurst Close, Sevenoaks), concerning the Mason collection at Bolton, states: ‘Many years ago the Mason collection came into your possession and many of the duplicates... to me. I did not incorporate many of these duplicates into my own collection.’ Other specimens collected by him are in the Bedwell collection at Norwich; the general collection at Doncaster; the collection of the RHS (8 specimens with initials HWE, Carabids, Buprestids and Cerambycids. Information from Andy Salisbury). Mackechnie Jarvis (1976) p.108 records that he owned the Blatch and Blenkarn collections, and that part of his collection went to Harrow School and part was sold. A dozen or so beetles collected by Ellis in the Isle of Wight, Knowle, Gravesend, Tonbridge, Eastleigh and Bedfordshire are in the Tullie House Museum, Carlisle (Information from Steve Hewitt). Correspondence with C.J.Wainwright (1907-1939) is in the RESL (Pederesen (2002) p.126). There are obituaries in EMM, 1943, 280 and in Proc.RESL, 8, 1944, 69 (incorrectly named as Henry Willoughby Ellis). FESL 1900 (Council 1916-18, 1922-24, 1929 -31; Vice President 1924, 1931. Member of the Ent. Club 1923 (Secretary 1924), K.G.Blair who wrote the EMM obituary noting that his 'genial presence' at meetings would be much missed. (MD 12/04, 12/21) |
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| WILSON, Edward | Published ‘On the metamorphosis of the Bloody Nosed Beetle’ in Mag.Nat.Hist., 6, 1833, pp.533-35. (MD 12/04) | ||
| WILSON, G. FOX | 26 January 1896 - 9 January 1951 | possibly the first long term established colony of the pest). More than 300 specimens collected by Fox Wilson mainly at Wisley are in the RHS’s collection. Fox Wilson was President of the Association of Applied Biologists 1949-1950 and there is a 1/07) | |
| WILSON, James | 1795 – 1856 | Scottish entomologist who published several notes and lists of beetles including, Entomologia Edinensis or a Description and History of the Insects found in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh, Coleoptera (1834) which he wrote in conjunction with James Duncan. This includes detailed descriptions of each species as well as locality information, and is one of the best of the early local lists. It runs to 351pages. To a certain extent it relied on the earlier work of Charles Stewart (1809) and on Duncan’s own ‘Catalogue of Edinburgh Coleoptera’ in Memoirs of the Wernerian Society., 4, p.443, (read in 1831). The Register in the RSM states that a ‘large collection of British and Foreign insects formed by the late James Wilson, Woodville in 4 cabinets containing 58 drawers besides 52 loose drawers’ was purchased from Miss Wilson by the College Museum for £40 in 1868. (When I visited the Museum in 1979 Pelham Clinton indicated to me that only 6 drawers survived, of which I could only find 2). Smith (1986) p.96 records letters to Hope from J.Wilson covering the period 1827-35 but it is not clear whether this is the same person. (MD 12/04) | |
| WILSON, Walter Archibald | 1892 – 26 March 1969 | Little appears to be known about Wilson who wrote The Coleoptera of Somerset, 1958 (published as a Supplement to Proc. Som. Arch. Nat. Hist. Soc., 101 and 102) beyond the fact that he lived at ‘Sunny Patch’ 16 Ballfield Road, Minehead, Somerset in 1954 and that he held a managerial position in a cable and wireless firm. Many of the records in the book are his own and most of the species mentioned are in the collection he formed in 10 drawers and 21 store boxes, which he bequeathed to the Somerset County Museum at Taunton in 1969. It is accompanied by some field notes and record cards. A ms note from the Somerset Archaeological and Natural History Society sent to the RES, apparently at the time of his death, states: ‘Mr Wilson had no immediate family and appears to have been something of a recluse. Little is known of him locally... Mr Wilson also appears to have been a member of the British Trust for Entomology and the Mid Somerset Naturalist Society... Bridgewater.’ There is an obituary in Proc. Som. Arch. Nat. Hist. Soc., 113, 1969, pp. 112-13 which I have not seen. FRES 1954-1969 (MD 12/04, 1/07) | |
| WINTER, A.E. | Mentioned in Walsh (1956) as a collector of Coleoptera in the Scarborough area at the same time as himself. (MD 12/04) |