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 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| PASCOE, Francis Polkinghorne | 1 September 1813 – 20 June 1893 | Born in Penzance and educated at the Grammar School there. Entered St Bartholomew’s Hospital and after gaining his MRCS in 1835 was appointed a surgeon in the Navy serving in the Australian, West Indian and Mediterranean regions. In 1843 he married Miss Glasson of Falmouth and retired from the Navy settling at St. Austell where he had a property producing China clay. Following the death of his wife in 1851 he moved to London and devoted himself to entomology in particular. After becoming ill at the end of his life he moved firstly to Tunbridge Wells and then to Brighton where he died. He had three daughters, and a son who pre-deceased his father in 1872. Robert Mclachlan in his obituary (EMM., 29, 1893, pp.194-96) described Pascoe as having ‘little aptitude for collecting’ so that, although he travelled extensively abroad, not just in the navy but later in the company of his daughters, the collections he built up were primarily of material obtained from others. His forte was as a taxonomist and he published more than a hundred papers naming and describing new species of foreign Cerambycidae, Colydiidae, Tenebrionidae and Curculionidae. Several papers were published in conjunction with other authors including two with Alfred Wallace and one with J.O.Westwood. He is mentioned in the Janson diary at Cambridge, eg. 11 October 1871. Pascoe’s collection of over 42,000 specimens was sold to the NHM in 1893 and included more than 2,500 types. Smith (1986) p.140 states that the remainder, 13 cabinets, and part of his library, was given to the HDO by Miss Pascoe at the suggestion of A.Russel Wallace. A scrapbook (mainly cut-up plates of beetles, but including a few original paintings); original paintings, also a few pen and ink, and pencil sketches; 3 notebooks and some correspondence is also in the HDO. FRES from 1854 (President 1864-65). Also belonged to various foreign societies. FLS from 1852. Gilbert (1977) lists 12 obituaries in addition to that mentioned above. (MD 9/04) | |
| PASCOE, Stanley | Primarily a Lepidopterist. Lived at Newquay where his entomological collection formed a major part of the Newquay Butterfly Museum. When this was closed it was acquired by a Sports and Country Club in North Devon and it remained there until being sold at auction (Torridge Auctions) on 6 June 1996. The Catalogue mentions that apart from the butterflies there were also five cases of other insects including two of beetles. These were not arranged taxonomically but as decorative displays. (I am grateful to Eric Gowing-Scopes for bringing this catalogue to my attention). (MD 9/04) | ||
| PATTERSON, Robert | April 1802 – 14 February 1872 | Irish zoologist who published four notes on beetles including ‘Note respecting the larvae of Blaps mortisaga’ in Trans.ESL, 2, 1838, pp.99-100, and ‘Coleoptera of the Hollywood District’ (with W.D.Donnan) in IN.,1, 1892, pp.103-04). A ‘List of Irish Coleoptera collected mainly by the late Robert Patterson, esq., FRS, in the year 1829’ was published as appendix to Proc. Belfast. Nat. Field Club, 2, 1885, 9(5), pp.317-326. There is an obituary in Nature, London, 5, 1872, p.332. (MD 9/04) | |
| PEACOCK, Enid R. |
Published 'Adults and larvae of hide, larder and carpet beetles and their relatives (Coleoptera: Dermestidae) and of derodontid beetles (Coleoptera: Derodonitidae), Handbooks for the Identification of British Insects 5(3), RESL. |
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| PEAL, S.E. | Fowler (1912) records that he collected Neocollyris species in Assam. (MD 9/04) | ||
| PEARCE, Edmund James | 1 July 1903 – 1982 | Born into a clerical family his father afterwards becoming Bishop of Derby. Educated at Sherborne School where he first became interested in natural history. Attended Corpus Christi College, Cambridge and took a third in the Natural History Tripos in 1924. Became a Deacon in 1932 and was ordained priest in 1933. His first living was at St. Marks, Swindon, but in 1935 he entered the Anglican community at Mirfield, later becoming Prior of St Teilo, Cardiff (1955-58) and Prior of Codrington College, Barbados (1958-68) where he was known as Father Justin. He became ill whilst abroad and although he returned to England he never really recovered. He died at Lincoln. There is an obituary by Charles MacKechnie-Jarvis in EMM., 119, 1983, pp.171-76 which includes a photograph and bibliography of 98 titles published between 1919 and 1975. Of these his two best known works are probably the List of the Coleoptera of Dorset (1926), written when he was 23 years old (he subsequently added three supplements in 1927, 1929, and 1931) and his RESL Handbook Pselaphidae (1957). His main collections of Pselaphidae, Scydmaenidae (and some Haliplidae), including many paratypes, are in the NMW, given in 1958 before he went to Barbados. They amount to some 6,000 specimens and are accompanied by 14 files of MS material. His main collection of Haliplidae is in the NHM where is also housed 6 British collecting log books 1920-1952 and 1969-1973, a three-box MS Catalogue of the Pearce Collection Haliplidae, one MS notebook Material deposited or sent to the British Museum, miscellaneous photographs and slides, and a loose leaf MS of his earliest collecting records, c.1920 (Harvey, et al (1996) p.154). I have also seen specimens collected by him in the Doncaster Museum (many Haliplidae), in the Britten collection at Manchester, and his Wiltshire water beetles are in my collection (ex Marlborough College).There is correspondence with Herbert Franz (27 April 1953), Walter Horn (11 Januray, 4 May, 3 August 1937) and Jan Obenberger (May 1948) in the RESL (Pedersen (2002) pp. 83, 91). FRES from 1922. (MD 9/04, 11/09) | |
| PEARSON, J.T. | Published ‘On Lamia rubus’ in Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, 6, 1837, pp.321-322. (MD 9/04) | ||
| PEARSON, W. | Mentioned by Walsh (1956) as a worker on beetles in the Scarborough district. (MD 9/04) | ||
| PEGLER, Stephen | Published ‘Broscus cephalotes at Retford’ in Ent., 28, 1895, p.281. (MD 9/04) | ||
| PELERIN, J. | See Pelerin W.G. below, presumably they were related. (MD 9/04) |