Born at Scotter, in Lincolnshire the youngest son of a large family. Educated chiefly at Bury St Edmunds Grammar School and in 1842 entered Jesus College, Cambridge taking his BA in 1845. Remained in Cambridge until forced to travel to Madeira because of ill health. On his return lived in Thurloe Square and Hereford Street, Park Lane, London, until pulmonary weakness drove him to move to Kings Kerswell and then Teignmouth where he died. In the meantime he passed many winters in Madeira, though even there he was in a state of ‘constant warfare between physical incapacity and willpower... half my work was actually written in bed’ (Letter quoted in EMM,14, 1878, 214). In January 1869 he married the daughter of his friend Mr Shepherd of Teignmouth but they had no children.

Wollaston’s interest in Coleoptera first manifested itself while he was a student at Cambridge and may have been partly inspired by Revs. J.F.Dawson and Hamlet Clark who were also there and became his friends. It was at this time that he published his first article, on the Coleoptera of Launceston, in Zool, 1, 1843. Others quickly followed not just on the British fauna, to which he added several new species including Pentarthrum huttoni and compiled several revisions eg. Atomaria, but also on the fauna of the Islands he visited. It was one of these, the Insecta Maderensia which ran to pp.677 and 13 plates, and was published in 1854, which became the work for which he is best known. Later, he published a detailed catalogue for the NHM which acquired the collection, and several other smaller books: Coleoptera Atlantidum (1865), Coleoptera Hesperidum (1867) and Coleoptera Sanctae Helenae (1877).

His favourite families of beetles were the Cossoninae, in which he described 255 new species against 67 discovered by all other Coleopterists, and the Colydiidae. Wollaston was acquainted with Darwin, and in 1856, in a book entitled On the Variation of Species with especial reference to the Insecta, followed by an inquiry into the nature of genera, may be said to have dimly anticipated some of his views. His anonymous review of the Origin in Ann.Mag.Nat.Hist., 5(3), 1860, 132-143 was harshly critical and illuminates Wollaston's scientific and religious thinking.

He is mentioned in the Gorham diary at Birmingham eg. 25 March 1874, and is said by Mackechnie Jarvis (1976), 102, to have pioneered the mounting of beetles on cards in this country (see below). The first part of his collection of Coleoptera from Madeira and the Salvages, amounting to 4,000 specimens, was purchased by the NHM in 1855 and the second part in 1858. In 1864 the Museum purchased a selection of his Canarian Coleoptera (in the HDO is a copy of Wollaston’s Canaries Catalogue which has been annotated by J.O.Westwood as follows: ‘The first selection of specimens from the collection has been arranged by Mr Wollaston and has been purchased by the Trustees of the British Museum, a second selection was purchased by Mrs Hope for £200 and presented to the Oxford Museum’) and, at unspecified times, selections of Coleoptera from the Cape Verde Islands and St Helena were also acquired. According to Waterhouse et.al.(1906), 601, these collections were all kept in separate cabinets.. Harvey et.al.(1996) p.224 records that there is a ms notebook containing ‘Numbers relating to localities of the Madeiran insects in the British Museum’ in the NHM. Specimens collected by him are also in the Mason collection at Bolton; the Hall collection at Oldham (from Kent, information from Simon Hayhow), and in the Butler collection at Norwich (possibly from the NHM, information from Tony Irwin). A copy of a letter from Oliver Janson at Liverpool states that Wollaston’s collection was purchased by Crotch, and an entry in his diary at Cambridge indicates that Wollaston had Crotch specimens in his collection. A box of named beetles from St Helena and the Canaries, given by Wollaston’s widow to Philip de la Garde was included in the Newbery gift to Cambridge in 1912. The Insect Department Register there indicates that pinned into the box were letters and ms lists which referred to Wollaston’s colour coding, localities, etc.. 

In the fattish volume of G.R.Crotch lists at Cambridge there is information about the mounting cards used by Wollaston – narrower in front than at the back and inscribed underneath in pencil -‘Crotch may have remounted on his own card but some may retain original cards and records and any with black pins are from Ireland where Wollaston collected chiefly about Killarney’.

The HDO acquired Wollaston’s Ceylon Coleoptera via J.O.Westwood in 1857. They also have an 11 drawer cabinet of Madeiran insects mainly Coleoptera and including many types which was purchased for £300 by Hope and presented in 1860; another 11 drawer cabinet of Canary Islands beetles purchased for £200 and presented by Mrs Hope in 1863; a box of Cape Verde Coleoptera purchased in November 1867 for £5; several further selections of Madeiran Coleoptera; 81 St Helena Coleoptera purchased from Janson for £3.15s 9d in December 1878; 30 Coleoptera from St Helena presented by Dale in 1881 and the Dale collection, also in the Department, contains a further four drawers of Wollaston’s beetles from Madeira, Cape Verde, Canary Islands and St Helena. The HDO also has letters from Wollaston to Hope and Westwood 1860-77, and other mss including a Coleoptera catalogue and lists.

Wollaston was also an authority on molluscs (I am grateful to Mike Morris for pointing out Cook’s article to me). Lott (2009), 8, discusses his collecting activities in Leicestershire at Ambion Wood near Shenton Hall where he had family connections. Wollaston's library was sold by Stevens on 9 January 1912 (Chalmers-Hunt (1976) p. 151). Pedersen (2002) p.98 records a letter in the RESL which refers to Mrs Wollaston as a collector too. My own library includes a letter from Mike Morris of 14 January 2014 including a list of the 61 names of the people to whom Wollaston dedicated species, translated from Antonio Machado with amendments.

FLS from 1843 (Council 1857-58, Publication Committee 1857). Gilbert (1977) lists 11 obituary and other notices. Roger Booth at the NHM is currently involved with work on Wollaston. (MD 12/04)