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 ascending Dates Biography
||Meel, Albert Stewart 1871 -1943

A professional natural history collector who collected many Coleoptera in New Guinea. the surrounding Islands, and the Solomon Islands. (see Peter Andrews  ‘The Jansons, a family of entomologists’ on the Collector’s Secrets website.

YOUNG, Morris c.1821 – 26 February 1897 Little is recorded about his early history but he was for many years a school master at Paisley, until being appointed Curator of the Paisley Museum when it opened in 1870.. The first of the few short notes he published was devoted to Lepidoptera but it was as a Coleopterist that he was best known and in particular for his addition of several species to the British list including Silvanus bidentatus (EMM., 2, 1865, p.181, found under pine bark near Paisley and det. for him by David Sharp). His collection of both insects and books was acquired by the Paisley Museum to which he also bequeathed £500 on the understanding that the interest would be used to extend the entomological collections. Richard Weddle tells me that he has recently seen the collection (January 2007) and ‘It is still apparently intact, but in the original cases, and in need of some conservation.’ There is a printed list of Staphylinidae marked up by Young in the RESL library I have a copy of a printed list of Staphylinidae marked up by him, which was given to me by Eric Gowing-Scopes. FESL from 1886. There is an obituary in EMM., 33, 1897, p.283. (MD 12/04)
YERBURY, John William 1847 - 1927 A colonel. Numerous insects in the HDO acquired at various times including 137 Coleoptera from Porthcawl (1906). The Department also holds letters, diaries, etc. (Smith (1986) p. 163). Pedersen (2002) p.99, 133, 142, lists correspondence in the RESL including a letter from C.G.Nurse to C.J.Wainwright, 21 September 1930 ‘...I am glad to have other interests, sport, cards, & literature, besides entomology. Yerbury had none, hence his old age was not a happy one. He told me he wished he could step into a lethal chamber...’ (MD 12/04, 11/09)
WROUGHTON, Robert Charles 15 August 1849 – 15 May 1921 Born at Nusserabad, India, the son of Major General R.C.Wroughton. Educated at Bedford School and King’s College, London. Trained in the L’Ecole Forestiere, Nancy, and took up a post in the Indian Forestry Service on 10 December 1871 as Assistant Conservator of Forests in the Bombay Presidency. He eventually became Inspector General of Forests for India before retiring in 1904. Wroughton took a particular interest in Ants but also collected Coleoptera. Paussidae found by him near Bombay are mentioned by Fowler (1912), and Paussus wroughtoni Wasm. was named after him. FESL 1891-1907. (MD 12/04)
WOTTON, F.W. 1847 – 1899 Born in Bristol and lived in Cardiff from 1868-1891. Formed large collections of British and foreign material (mainly molluscs)by exchange. He was at one time tutor to the Marquis of Bute’s children and suffered for the last 18 years of his life from chronic asthma. According to his entry in Fenscore apart from his interest in molluscs he ‘also took a great interest in bees and beetles, writing a section on entomology in collaboration with Mr J.R.le B Tomlin for the British Association Handbook, 1891. In Mr Tomlin’s catalogue of Glamorgan Coleoptera Mr Wotton’s entomological work was of much use’. There is a biography in Trans.Cardiff Nat.Soc. 32, pp. 67-69 which I have not seen. (MD 12/04)
WOOLLEY (also spelt WOOLEY), James H. b. c.1856-58 Gardener and bailiff who lived in Leicester Frith and published three records of beetles from the area in Naturalist’s Journal Magazine, 4, 1895, pp. 43, 141, 251-252. Lott (2009) p. 21 records that Frederick Bates reported in 1896 receiving a list of beetles out of sphagnum at Bradgate Park from Woolley, and that he presented a paper on a review of the British Carabidae with special reference to Leicester species to the members of the Leicester Literary and Philosophical Society on 10 December 1897. Of his collection Lott states: ‘A long series of specimens of many different species with no locality labels stands in the [S.O.]Taylor collection labelled in Taylor’s handwriting with the number 1303. This number corresponds to an entry in Taylor’s collection notebook dated 30 March 1942 explaining that they are from the J.H.Woolley collection. I assume that these are the remnants of the Woolley collection’. (MD 11/09)
WOOLLATT, L.H. K.C.Lewis tells me that there are specimens collected by Woollatt in his collection. (MD 12/06)
WOODWARD, R. Mentioned by Lott (2009) p.33 as a collector of beetles in Leicestershire who was known to both J.K.Bates and Donald Tozer. (MD 11/09)
WOOD, Theodore A Reverend. Mentioned in Elliman (1902) as a collector in Hertfordshire. He published ‘Captures of Coleoptera’ in EMM. 41, 1905, p.280 which recorded species taken over several years. At that time he was living in Wandsworth. Coleoptera collected by him are in the NHM and in the Kidson Taylor collection at Manchester. (MD 12/04)
WOOD, A.E.B. Gave 76 Lepidoptera and Coleoptera from the Plymouth neighbourhood to the RSM in 1894 (1894-59). (MD 12/04)

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