In a well-researched account of Burchell which Edward Poulton delivered in a lecture before the British Association in Cape Town on 17 August 1905, Poulton described him as 'by far the most scientific and greatest of the early African explorers' (The lecture was printed in the Report of the British and South African Associations, 3, 1905, 57-110, and subsequently reprinted as a separate by Eyre and Spottiswoode in 1907). Burchell was born in Fulham on 23 July, probably in 1782, though this is not certain, the eldest son of Matthew Burchell, a wealthy nurseryman. The facility with which he wrote Latin and French suggests that he received a good education. In 1805 he was appointed 'Schoolmaster and acting Botanist' at St. Helena by the East India Company. He remained there for five years before moving to Cape Town at the start of the South African journey, covering 4,500 miles, which is partly described in his Travels in the Interior of Southern Africa, 1822-24.

By September 1815 Burchell was back in St. Helena on his way home to Fulham. Here he remained for ten years, working on the large collections of insects, mammmals, plants and other specimens of natural history which he had collected, and preparing the manuscripts of his books on South Africa. On 10 March 1825 Burchell set out for Brazil, via Lisbon, Madeira, and Tenerife, and landed in Rio de Janeiro on 18 July 1825. He then spent three years in further travels and collecting before arriving at the city of Para, whence he sailed for England on 10 February 1830.Upon his return Burchell again settled in Fulham to work on his collections, until 23 March 1863, when, at the age of eighty one or two, he committed suicide.

Burchell's interest in Coleoptera certainly existed by the time of his first visit to St. Helena, for 'a few fragments' (Poulton, op. cit.) of the insects he collected during this visit survive in the HDO, including the type of Haplothorax burchelli, the large carabid which Hope named after him. All of Burchell's extensive collections (except plants at Kew) including his other entomological collections are also in the HDO and are accompanied by manuscript catalogues and related material. These are referred to by Poulton in 'The Collections of William John Burchell, D.C.L. in the Hope Department, Oxford University Museum', Ann.Mag.Nat.Hist., 13, 1904, 45-56, and are listed in Smith (1986), 70,106-7. As an instance of their size and scope it is worth noting that Burchell, in a manuscript account of his Brazilian travels, recorded: 'of insects I found from sixteen to twenty thousand specimens (at a guess)' (Smith records 18,315).

The entries in his notebooks testify to Burchell's considerable gifts as an observer of nature. His recognition, for example, of the close superficial resemblance of the Longhorn Amphidesmus analis to the Lycid beetles with which he found it, and that of Promeces viridis, another Longhorn, to a fossorial wasp, are, perhaps, the earliest allusions to the vast subject of mimicry. Similarly, his notes on the stridulation of Passalus and Prionus appear to be the first recognition of this phenomenon in these beetles.

Gilbert (1977) lists three references to Burchell apart from the account by Poulton, and there is a review in Ent.mon.Mag., 43, 1907, 68-69. (MD 12/01)

Mentioned in Stephens (1828)1, 54 and 114. FLS. (MD 12/01)

Published eight notes on Irish Coleoptera between 1897 and 1935 several listing additions to the Irish list (listed in Ryan et. al. (1984), 53. There are various references to him in Johnson & Halbert (1902), where he is listed as 'Bk'.

Is this the same E. Bullock, perhaps, whose name appears on specimens in the R. Wilding collection at Liverpool Museum, the Bedwell collection at Norwich Museum, and in the collections of the Manchester Museum? (MD 12/01)

Listed in the Ent.Ann., 1860, as interested in British Coleoptera. His address is given as Darwin Street, Birmingham. (MD 12/01)