Biographical dictionary
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Name |
Dates | Biography | |
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| BROWN, J.L. |
A photocopy of a typescript of the early minutes of the local Society, in Norwich Castle Museum, records that Brown gave (?) a collection of beetles in 1835. (MD 12/01) |
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| BROWN, J. Stephenson | Published 'Notes on the anatomy of Cicindela sexguttata' in Journal Micr. nat. Sci., (3)1(10), 1891, pp.97-106. (MD 12/01) | ||
| BROWN, Eric Septimus | 26 May 1912 - 10 September 1972 |
Educated at Magdalen School, Oxford and St. Peter Hall, Oxford. His early contributions to entomology were primarily concerned with the taxonomy, distribution and ecology of aquatic insects, especially Corixidae and other aquatic Hemiptera in many parts of the British Isles and in the Faroe Islands. Later he became interested in insect migration too, and it is these subjects which dominate his extensive list of publications. Perhaps his best known work on the Coleoptera was The Aquatic Coleoptera of North Wales, published by the Society for British Entomology in 1948. In 1946 he worked briefly with the Middle East Anti Locust Unit in Tripolitania on locust control, and in 1951 he became a member of the Commonwealth Institute of Entomology's pool of entomologists. In this latter capacity he worked in the Seychelles, the Soloman Islands, the Middle East and Africa, the study of armyworms occupying a great deal of his time. Brown bequeathed the greater part of his collections to the HDO. These include his named collections of British beetles, mainly aquatic, and his unnamed foreign insects which also include aquatic Coleoptera. Foreign collections from the Soloman Islands, New Guinea, Australia, the Seychelles, Madagascar and East Africa are in the NHM where is also an extensive collection of reports and manuscripts acquired from the Natural Resources Institute in 1988 (listed in Harvey et. al., (1996), 28-29). His collections of Hertfordshire beetles are mentioned in C.T. Gimingham 'Notes on the List of Hertfordshire Coleoptera...' in Transactions Hertfordshire Natural History Society, 24,(4), 1955. Smith (1986) records ‘Notebooks on Hemiptera (mainly aquatic); manuscript notes on East African Army Worm project and work in the Middle East; twelve diaries written in Madagascar, Seychelles, and Kenya’ in the HDO, and Pedersen (2002), 84, letters to D.J.Jackson in the RES . There is an obituary by E. Betts, including a photograph and complete list of publications, in Ent.mon.Mag., 109, 1973, 65-71. (MD 12/01, 11/09) |
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| BROWN, Edwin | 1818-1 September 1876 |
At the time of his death in Tenby from apoplexy, Brown was Manager of the Burton, Uttoxeter, and Ashbourn Bank, a position he had held for twenty five of the forty two years he had been connected with the bank. He was interested in all branches of natural history, and was recorded to have had enormous stores of treasures, geological, zoological and botanical, British and exotic, which he kept in a large room adjoining his house. Allingham (1924), in his account of insect sales noted ' A very famous sale of 1877 was that of the collection of Mr Edwin Brown, a banker of Burton on Trent. This collection contained most wonderful specimens, among them a great portion of the exotic beetles personally collected by Mr A.R. Wallace, the well-known naturalist, and collections formed by Count Castlenau, Mr Saunders, Major Parry, M. Thomson, M. Deyrolle, and Mr Carter. It was attended by all the naturalists of any note in England and on the Continent; R. Oberthur, the famous French coleopterist, attended in person, one of the only two occasions on which he personally attended an auction sale, and Count Mniszech's curator was there. Single specimens sold for £5 10s (Amblychila piccolomini); £7 10s (Platychila pallida); Oberthur paid £9 19s 6d for Mouhotia gloriosa and Deyrolle bought a pair (Anacamptorrhina ignipes) for £10 10s. Armitage, the Academcian, bought up many specimens for models for his Academy picture 'After an Entomological Sale' painted in 1878...As a whole the collection realized £1,658 19s'. This included the highest price ever paid for a single insect apart from a butterfly. Browne published very little, his most notable works being the entomological portion of Sir Oswald Moseley's Natural History of Tutbury, 1863; and a paper on Australian Carabidae in Trans.Ent.Soc.Lond., 1869, 351-353. Specimens from Brown's collections exist in Bolton Museum (acquired with the P.B. Mason collection) and in the NHM. Riley (1906), 582, records 'Edwin Brown had very extensive collections of Coleoptera. He purchased James Thomson's collection of Geodephaga, or at least a considerable portion of it. He also had a large number of specimens marked 'ex. cab. Castelnau'. He purchased A.R.Wallace's collection of Malayan Cetonidae. His collections were sold at auction at Stevens's rooms in March, 1877. The Trustees purchased several lots of Cicindelidae and Carabidae, including types of Thomson, Guerin, etc.. Some of the Carabidae were in the original cartons as purchased from Thomson. The Trustees also purchased lots of Cetoniadae, including Euryomia, with all Wallace's types, and a series of Protaetia. Other lots were purchased by Mr Pascoe, and these are also now in the Museum.' Gunther (1912), 37, records that 3,300 specimens were involved. Smith (1986), 106, records that over 1,500 specimens of Coleoptera and Hymenoptera in the HDO were purchased at the March 1877 sale for £7 11s 6d and included some Carabidae from Wallace and Brewer. As far as Brown's acquisitions from the Castelnau collection are concerned, a note in the Ent.mon.Mag., 38, 8,is interesting 'The Carabidae were purchased by Marquis Doria and presented to the Genoa Museum. It was the Cicindelidae not the Carabidae that Mr Brown acquired'. Lott (2009), 8, records that Brown corresponded with James Harley and that they met together with John Plant at Burton on Trent on 7 September 1842. Pedersen (2002), 54, notices that there are 3 letters to J.C. Dale dated 1863-1868 in the RES, and Mick Cooper informs me that there is further information about Brown in Nottingham Museum. There are obituaries in Ent.mon.Mag., 13, 1876, 116-117, and in Proc.Ent.Soc.Lond., 1876, xliii. FESL from 1849. (MD 12/01, 10/03, 1/22) |
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| BROOME, Roderick R. | 8 April 1899-23 March 1966 | An engineer who had a particular interest as an angler in Coleoptera, Lepidoptera and Diptera. His collections were at one time destined for the SLES. FLS and FRES 1940-death (MD 3/03) | |
| BROOKS, J.M. | Simon Hayhow tells me there are beetles collected by Brooks in the foreign collection at Oldham Museum. (MD 12/01) | ||
| BROOKS |
Mentioned by Johnson & Halbert (1902), 542, as a collector of Irish Coleoptera. (MD 12/01) |
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| BRODIE, William | 1831- 6 August 1909 |
Born at Peterhead, Aberdeen, but moved to the County of York, Canada as a child. His father is recorded to have 'hewn' his farm out of the forest there. Brodie took a degree in dentistry at the Dental College of Toronto, but after practising for many years, gave this up in 1903 to take charge of the Biological Department of the Provincial Museum. His interests are recorded to have ranged over all natural history subjects, but his favourite pursuit was entomology, and galls in particular. He was an omnivorous reader and had a very retentive memory so that he could recite hundreds of Scottish ballads, etc.. He had six children of which three daughters succeeded him. He published notes on various entomological subjects including Coleoptera, and with J.E. White, A Check List of Insects of the Dominion of Canada, Toronto, 1883. There are obituaries in Canadian Entomologist, 41, 1909, 377-380, and 42, 1910, 47-48; and in Report Entomological Society Ontario, 40, 1909, 129, by F. Morris. (MD 12/01) |
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| BRODIE, Peter Bellinger | 1815 -1 November 1897 |
Vicar of Rowington in Warwickshire for forty four years. An accomplished geologist, he made a particular study of fossil insects and published many articles on them, some of which refer to Coleoptera. Perhaps his best known work is his rare book History of the Fossil Insects of the Secondary Rocks of Britain, 1845, which includes ten plates by J.O. Westwood. He was a member of the Geological Society from 1834. Brodie’s finds are discussed in Ross, A.J and Jarzembowski, E.A. ‘A Provisional Checklist of the Fossil Insects from the Purbeck Group of Wiltshire’ in Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine, 89, 1996, 106-115, and there are obituaries in Ent.mon.Mag., 33, 1897, 284, and Trans.Ent.Soc,Lond., 1897, lxxii. Smith (1986) records letters from Brodie and W.R. Brodie to J.O. Westwood (1853-4) in the HDO. (MD 12/01) |
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| BRODIE, N.S. |
Lepidopterist. But mentioned in G.J.Arrow, FBI, Lamellicornia, 1917, 159, as having collected Rutelinae at Chittore, near Madras. Smith (1986) records that his Lepidoptera collections in the HDO include letters from Mrs Brodie. (MD 12/01) |