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
ROWDEN, A.O. This name appears on Cerambycidae in the Kaufmann collection at Manchester. (MD 11/04)
ROWLEY, H. There are Coleoptera and other insects in the HDO collected near River Zaire while he was attached to the Oxford and Cambridge Mission to Zambesi in 1864 (Smith (1986) p.146). (MD 11/04)
RUDD, G.T.

A reverend who lived in south Wiltshire and whose captures of beetles are mentioned by Stephens (1828). Published six notes on insects in the Ent. Mag. between 1834 and 1846 some of which dealt with beetles. The last described Haltica dispar as a new species. (Zool., 4, 1846, p. 1517). There is correspondence in the RESL with A.H.Haliday dated 1830-1838 (Pedersen (2002) p. 55) and Adam Parker informs me that there is a collection of British Coleoptera and Hymenoptera in the Yorkshire Museum which includes some Haworth material 'recently discovered and in poor condition'. (MD 11/04, 11/09, 12/21)

RUDD, L. Mentioned by Stephens (1828) eg. pp.124,135. (MD 11/04)
RUDD,C.D. This name appears on specimens at Exeter Museum collected in the early 20th century. (MD 11/04)
RYE, Bertram George 24 September1872 – 7 November 1939 Son of E.C.Rye (see below). Published a number of articles on Coccinellidae before 1900. Carded Powers’ specimens in the NHM. (MD 11/04)
RYE, Edward Caldwell 10 April 1832 – 7 February 1885

Born in Golden Square, London the eldest son of Edward Rye, a solicitor of Norfolk descent. Educated at King’s College, London and, although not wanting to qualify for the law, joined his father’s office as a clerk. His obituary in EMM, 21, 1885, 238-240, mentions that it was no secret that he wanted to join the staff of the Zoological Department at the British Museum but no vacancy materialised. Later he became managing clerk to a barrister. His favourite sport was rowing which he continued until past the age of 50 winning many prizes. On 30 July 1881 he was temporarily crippled when his boat was sandwiched between a barge and a steamer. After retiring from the legal profession in 1875 he became Librarian to the Royal Geographical Society and worked, too, for the Zoological Record, the Field newspaper, and the EMM of which he was one of the founding editors. He died of small pox which it was believed he had contracted from association with the riverside community.

Rye published some 240 papers on British beetles of which 18 appeared in the first volume of the EMM including a 36 page revision of Stenus. Of particular importance were the annual compilations of additions and corrections to the British list which appeared in the Ent. Ann. from 1863 until the magazine ceased in 1874. Shortly before this he published a ‘List of the species of Coleoptera recorded as new to Britain in the Entomologist’s Annuals 1855-72...’ (Ent.Ann.,1872, 125-201) which included some 1,100 species. Between 1864 and 1876 he named 35 new species, of which 18 still survive, and re-named 8 others. His single book, British Beetles, An introduction to the study of our indigenous Coleoptera was published by Lovell Reeve in 1866, (and updated by W.W.Fowler and republished in 1890).

MacKechnie-Jarvis (1976) pointed out that Rye married into the Waterhouse family of well-known Coleopterists who were themselves related to the Griesbachs, and he includes a family tree. E.G.Hancock, Rye’s Beetles, a catalogue of E.C.Rye’s type specimens in the Bolton Museum, 1985, includes another tree giving further information, and also lists 30 type species, and a further 3 species named after Rye: Apion ryei Blackburn 1874, Meligethes ryei Wollaston 1871 and Scopaeus ryei Wollaston 1872. Rye is mentioned in the Gorham diary at Birmingham Museum; the Janson diary at Cambridge eg. June 1868, August 1869; and in Charles Waterhouse’s Localities list (1861) at RSM.

Towards the end of his life Rye’s editorial and other duties became so onerous that he was forced to give up beetles and to sell his collection to Philip Mason, and it is now housed at Bolton as part of the Mason collection. Hancock (1985) gives a detailed account of the acquisition which included a 40 drawer cabinet, 19 loose drawers, and 2 storeboxes of beetles and an empty 24 drawer cabinet, (the empty cabinet was subsequently used to house the boxed and loose drawer specimens) and he estimated that the number of beetles amounted to between one quarter and one third of Mason’s total collection of 70,000 specimens. A marked up copy of a Catalogue of British Coleoptera inscribed ‘HSG from ECR’ is in the Birmingham Museum (85-32). Other Ms notes are included in an annotated copy of Sharp’s Catalogue of British Coleoptera at Bolton which Rye re-titled Catalogue of the Collection of British Coleoptera of E.C.Rye, March 25, 1880. On this last see Hancock (1985), 26-27, where a page is reproduced. There are also specimens collected by Rye in the Britten collection at Manchester; in the collection of W.C Hey at York (Simms, 1968) and in my collection, acquired as part of the Marlborough College collection to which it is known that Rye donated many single examples of different species. Unfortunately those in my collection include no locality information which is in line with Fowler’s statement that Rye never attached data to his specimens. The 7 type specimens not at Bolton are in the NHM (Power, Champion and Sharp collections).

Gilbert (1977) lists 10 obituary and other notices and Hancock (1985) includes two portraits. (MD 11/04, 12/21))

RYLANDS, Peter Published a number of articles on insects between 1836 and 1841 including several on beetles eg. ‘Notes on the Amarae’ (Nat. 1837, pp.20-24, 240-246); ‘Some observations on the classification of the Adephaga (Nat. 1838, pp.73-77); Notes on Telephori (Mag. Nat. Hist., 1840, pp.133-35) and ‘Notice of new Amarae’ [4 spp.] ( Ent., 1841, pp.216). (MD 11/04)
RYLES, W.E. Worked with J.W.Carr and Frank M. Robinson, curators at Nottingham, collecting insects for the Museum during the First World War and donated ‘an extensive series’ of beetles (perhaps his personal collection) to the Museum in 1918. The database at Nottingham includes 4139 records, mostly Coleoptera but some Hemiptera from Notts., few Lincs., Leics., and New Forest; 1883-1918. (Information from Michael Cooper) See also EVANS, W. Mentioned by J.W. Carr, The Invertebrate Fauna of Nottingham (1916; Supplement 1935) as a Coleopterist who 'has worked the area of Nottingham'. (MD 11/04, 12/06)
SAGE, Bryan Leonard. 6 August 1930 - 30 November 2018

Born in East Barnet, London and after leaving school joined a firm of shipping agents. He did National Service with the Royal Armoured CVorps in the early 1950s and his career really took off when he was employed by British Petroleum, becoming their senior ecologist, especially mapping the ecology of the proposed Trans-Alaska Pipeline from Valdez to Prudhoe Bay in 1969.

His early enthusiasm for natural history was stimulated as a boy by the local countryside and he joined the London Natural History Society and later became active in a field group of the British Naturalists Association. His particular interest at this time was birds and after he joined the Hertfordshire Natural History Society in the late 1950s he published The History of the Birds of Hertfordshire when only 29 years old. Later birds would lead him to undertake an expedition with the Royal Navy to document them in Labrador, and to the Shetlands to mitigate potential problems with the Sullon Voe oil terminal. Later he published general wildlife books including Alaska and Its Wildlife (1973) and as co-author with Eric Hosking Antarctic Wild Life (1982) and with Hugh Danks The Arctic and its Wildlife (1986).

Sage's enthusiasm for beetles had already developed when he was in his 20s becoming the Hertfordshire beetle recorder (and also for Birds and Dragonflies) and James (2018) registers a debt to him for supplying a special contribution. In the year following this publication James also wrote Sage's obituary in Col., 28(3), 2019, 114-15, from which much of the above is taken.

Sage's real enthusiasm for beetles developed after his move to Norfolk in 1978. Martin Collier, writing a follow-up to James obituary in the same journal, recorded 'Bryan was, by some margin, the most regular and longest-standing provider of Norfolk beetle records, making huge contributions to the county list. Over a period of more than thirty years (1986-2018), he sent me a total of 171 neatly typed lists of records for approximately 1,275 species. These lists included many first county records and nationally rare species, some of which have never been found here subsequently...Bryan was also recording here long before he moved here in 1978. For example, back in 1956 when Bryan was just 26, he stayed on Scolt Head Island for three days and kept records of the spiders and beetles he found [published in Ent.,1957]. Although Bryan recorded throughout the county he favoured three sites in particular Swanton Novers Woods NNR, Holkham NNR, and the Stanford Training Area [detailed lists in Transactions of the Norfolk and Norwich Naturalists Society.]

James records that Sage's collections, 'became quite extensive, boosted by acquisitions of material from Dr Ian White, mainly a dipterist, working at the Natural History Museum in London. His beetle collection and notes have gone to the Norwich Castle Museum.'

He was at one time President of the Herts, Nat. Hist. Soc. and founder of the Herts Bird Club. There are photographs in James (1918) and on the  Hertfordshire Natural History Society's website. James (191) mentions that he had compiled a bibliography of Sage's publications available as a pdf. here is another obituary in the Eastern Daily Press 12 December 2018. (MD 1/22)

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