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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Namesort descending Dates Biography
STANLEY, Edward Smith, 13th Earl of Derby 21 April 1775 – 30 June 1851 Eldest son of of Edward, 12th Earl of Derby, by his first wife Lady Elizabeth Hamilton. Educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge. Became MP for Preston and retained that position until 17 April 1839 when he inherited the Earldom on the death of his father and retired from public life. Stanley had already displayed an early interest in Zoology and now devoted himself to setting up a private menagerie and building up collections at his home at Knowsley, Lancashire. At the same time he contributed many papers to J.LSL of which he had been President from 1828-33. Stanley’s biography in DNB does not mention that he had any interest in insects and suggests that his collections (his museum contained more than 20,000 specimens) were of animals, birds, reptiles and fishes alone. However, the Entomology Registers of the NHM state that he presented to the Museum a large collection of Coleoptera in 1843 (1843.19) and eight further collections up to 1851 amounting to more than 500 specimens from Australia and South Africa. Some were collected by Mr J. Macgilliway (or M. Gillivray) who appears to have made a journey to those countries on HMS Fly. The contents of his house were sold by Stevens on 6-11 October 1851. (MD 11/04)
STARKEY, J.S. Published ‘Beetle records from Co. Wicklow’ in IN., 9, 1900, p.108. (MD 11/04)
STEBBING Fowler (1912) records that Stebbing collected Cicindelidae in Northern Assam. (MD 11/04)
STEEDEN, Charles Frederick & Nigel Jeremy

Bothers who were members of the Fylde Naturalists Society and founded its magazine The Fylde Naturalist in the 1970s. The brothers were interested in several orders but particularly the Lepidoptera although they do note in an autobiographical chapter in Raven ent. nat. hist. soc. Fifty Years, 1946-1996, 183-84 that 'for the last ten years or so we have been studying a few groups of the Fylde insect fauna for which little published local data exists in particular Coleoptera and Heteroptera' (MD 1/22)

STEEL, William Owen 23 September 1917 – 5/6 September 1969 Attended Minchenden School, Southgate, London from 1929-36. Upon the death of his father, being the eldest son, he had to support his family so took up the post of Medical Laboratory Technician with Middlesex County Council. Shortly before the outbreak of the 2nd World War he joined ICI where he worked on plastics until 1945 when he transferred to the Agricultural Control Section. Here he was able to work with insects in which he had been interested since a boy. In 1959 he was appointed Senior Experimental Field Officer at Silwood Park, Imperial College’s Field Station, and it was then that he was able to pursue professionally his interest in the taxonomy of the Coleoptera. Whilst in this post he studied for a degree but this, and his taking up a Lectureship in Entomology which had been offered to him, were forestalled by his early death. A doctorate was awarded to him posthumously. Steel’s other interests included the Territorial Army reserve and the Boy Scout movement, and he was a national authority on 19th century railway goods stock. Lived at Bracknell in 1948 and Maidenhead in 1955. Steel was on the editorial board off the EMM and succeeded W.D.Hincks as editor of the Coleopterorum Catalogus. For the RESL he edited three parts of the revised edition of Kloet and Hincks Check List of British Insects and prepared a handbook on the Lathridiidae which was not published. He was also much involved with survey work for the Nature Conservancy Council as a member of their Survey Committee and of their Entomological Liaison Committee. He died whilst undertaking a survey on the Isle of Rhum, which was the subject of his last edited publication (with G.E.Woodroffe) ‘The Entomology of the Isle of Rhum National Nature Reserve’ in Trans. Soc .Brit. Ent., 18, 1969, pp.91-167. Steel’s great interest in the Coleoptera was the Staphylinidae and their larvae particularly the Proteininae and Omalinae which he studied on a world basis. The first of his 65 notes and articles on this subject, many of which describe new genera and species, was published in EMM., 74, 1938, pp.28-30. His additions to the British list included Bohemiellina paradoxa, Carpelimus subtlicornis and Tachinus flavolimbatus Steel’s collection passed to the NHM. There are also beetles collected by him in the D.G.Hall collection at the North Hertfordshire Museum (Information from Trevor James) and Johnson (2004) p.15 notes that there is a collection of 2,000 specimens, being Scottish survey material (1960-68) and English Ptiliidae (1939-43), in the Manchester Museum, acquired in c.1970. This collection is accompanied by locality lists. FRESL from 1952. There is an obituary by T.R.E.Southwood in EMM., 105, 1969, pp. 144-49, which includes a complete bibliography and photograph, and another in Proc.RESL., 34, 1969-70, (C), p.63. (MD 11/04)
STEELE, Mary Collected more than 1000 insects in Burma in the 1930s which she donated to the NHM together with a ms locality and collecting data notebook (Harvey et. al. (1996) p.199). (MD 11/04)
STELFOX, Arthur W. 1883-1972 Ryan et. al. (1984) pp.87-88 lists 10 articles by Stelfox on Irish Coleoptera in IN, INJ and EMM between 1924-1931. Three record new species to Ireland. Hancock and Pettit (1981) notice collections of mollusca, fossils and hymenoptera in Manchester and Liverpool Museums. They also cite n obituary in INJ., 1973, pp.285-302 which I have not seen. (MD 11/04)
STENDALL, J.A.S. Ryan et. al. (1984) p.88 lists two articles by Stendall in INJ on Tribolium ferrugineum in Belfast’ (7,1938, p.87) and ‘Acanthocinus aedilis in Belfast’ (9, 1947, p.99). (MD 11/04)
STEPHENS, J.A. 1882 - 4 March 1947 .A Captain and keen naturalist who acquired an enthusiastic interest in beetles later in life and collected especially in the Cobham Park district. There is a brief obituary in Proc.RESL 12(C), 1947-48, p.64. (MD 11/04)
STEPHENS, James Francis 16 September 1792 – 22 December 1852

Born at Shoreham, Sussex, the only son of Captain William James Stephens and Mary Peck (later known as Mrs Dallinger). Educated at the Bluecoat School, Hertford and at Christ’s Hospital, to which he was presented by Shute Barrington, the Bishop of Durham, from 15 May 1800 -16 September 1807, when he was placed by his uncle Admiral Stephens at the Admiralty Office, Somerset House.

Stephens interest in entomology manifested itself when he was still at school and in 1809 he began a Catalogue of British Animals that was carried up to 1812 in ms. From 1815 – 1825 his spare time was largely taken up by ornithology. In 1818 at the request of the Trustees of the British Museum, Stephens was granted leave from his office to assist William Elford Leach in arranging the insect collection. From then on he devoted himself especially to British insects and prepared a catalogue and a descriptive account of them. In May 1827 the first part of his Illustrations of British Entomology, appeared which was eventually completed in 1836 (81 parts forming 11 volumes : Mandibulata vols 1-7, Haustellata vols 1-4) with a Supplement in 1846. This was followed by A systematic Catalogue of British Insects in August 1829. In 1832 Stephens took out legal proceedings against James Rennie, whose Conspectus of British Butterflies and Moths was in large part abstracted from his volumes, but he lost his case. The feeling of his friends was so much in his favour, however, that they raised a subscription to cover his entire costs. In 1845 when he returned to the Admiralty he encountered animosity from his superiors and was prematurely retired (losing part of his pension). He then went to work unpaid at the Museum on the Lepidoptera collections. His friends attempted but failed to obtain a Civil List Pension for him. It is said of Stephens that he declined to use a microscope regularly believing that what could not be seen with the naked eye was not worth studying, and he is credited with the introduction of the killing bottle. Apart from the Illustrations Stephens main publication on beetles was his A Manual of British Coleoptera, which appeared in 1839. On his row with John Curtis see the entry in this Dictionary on Curtis and EMM, 1, 1863, p.451. On his activities in the Bristol area and the West Country see Atty (1983,iii). In his Manual (p.vii) Stephens states ‘My collections [at Eltham Cottage, Foxley Rd., Kennington in 1839] are thrown open for inspection, etc. to any gentleman upon the presentation of his card, every Wednesday evening, at which time I shall be happy to receive my entomological friends as usual’.

His collection is now in the NHM and includes Marsham’s collection which he purchased and part of Francillons also purchased (in June 1818). The identification of the Marsham specimens is explored in detail by Peter Hammond in ‘On the type material of Staphylinidae described by T.Marsham and J.F.Stephens’ (Ent Gaz., 23, pp.129-135). (See MARSHAM, Thomas for more information). His library was purchased by Stainton who continued to open it on Wednesdays and who published a catalogue, Bibliotheca Stephensiana, with a memoir of Stephens, in 1853. After his death part passed to the ESL, with many of his own books, in 1898, and part was sold by Sotheby’s on 19 April 1899. Chalmers-Hunt (1976) p.79 records a collection of duplicate insects being sold by Stephens in May 1825, and Barbara Wager’s typescript Catalogue of the History and Origins of the Insect Collections in the Museum at Cambridge mentions that another early collection amounting to about 2,000 specimens was purchased in 1829. Letters to Westwood 1826 and to Hope 1835-37, and part of Stephens’ ms for A systematic Catalogue of British Insects 1829, are in the HDO (Smith, (1986) p.88). The NHM also holds letters and other ms material including a ms Desiderata of Coleoptera and a ms of his reminiscences. (Harvey et. al. (1996) pp.199-200). Member of the first Entomological Society of London being elected on 11 June 1822. FESL 1852; President 1837-38; Vice President 1833-35, 1842, 1849, 1852; Council 1840, 1842-45, 1847, 1850. (MD 11/04, 8/17)

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