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
BECK, R. Ernest Lewis informs me that Beck’s collection was given to Sidcot School, Wincombe, Avon, a Quaker school. (MD10/03)
BEAVER, A.A.

Published two articles on Scolytus at Wytham Wood in Ent.mon.Mag., 102, 1996, 156-70, and subsequently worked abroad (Australasia or Far East?) (information from Paul Harding). (MD 8/17)

BEAUMONT, W. Worby

Published 'Mice and Beetles' in Nature, 20, 1879, 29. (MD 10/01)

BEAUMONT, Alfred 1832-21 February 1905

Born at Honley, near Huddersfield. Educated at Storthes Hall under the tutorship of Peter Inchbald, a well-known entomologist of the time. It was here that Beaumont met J.W. Dunning and T.H. Allis, who were fellow pupils, and all three, enthused by Inchbald, retained an interest in entomology throughout their lives. It may have been at Storthes that Beaumont first met H.T. Stainton, the Lepidopterist, who also became a close acquaintance. On leaving school Beaumont joined his father's large woollen manufacturing business of which he later became the head. He was twice married, the church at Wilshaw, near Huddersfield, being erected to the memory of his first wife.

Beaumont's early enthusiasm was for Lepidoptera and ornithology, and he built up fine collections of both. These were disposed of (except some rarities) when he moved from Honley, eventually to settle at Lewisham, near the Staintons, in 1884, and later at Gosfield in Essex. His collecting activities had by now switched to other orders including Coleoptera. His first article on beetles 'Captures of Coleoptera near Pitlochry, Perthshire' appeared in Ent.mon.Mag., 20, 1883, 142-3) and was followed by various others, the last, on several beetles he had reared from timber, appearing in Ent., 1904.

George Porritt, writing Beaumont's obituary in Ent.mon.Mag., l02, 1905, 95, noted that 'he did splendid work among the Coleoptera, Hymenoptera, Neuroptera and Diptera, repeatedly finding species new to the British list, and in some cases new to science. Perhaps his favourite locality of late years was the lovely district of Oxshott in Surrey... He seemed never tired of collecting and setting his captures, and up to the time of his death, his setting of the most minute insects was a marvel of neatness. But the naming of his captures was always irksome to him; he usually sent his doubtful species to specialists, often to their advantage...’

Beaumont's collection, on which he was working at the moment of death, was sold by Stevens on 5 February 1906 (Chalmers Hunt 1976). It seems likely that this is the collection which A. Fergusson records in Ent.mon.Mag., 58, 1922, 279, as belonging to T.G. Bishop, the Glaswegian entomologist, and passing after his death in 1922 to his grandson, also T.G. Bishop.

Apart from the obituary already mentioned there are others in Ent., 38, 1905, 120 and in Ent.Jb.,15, 1906, 192. (MD 10/01)

BEARE, Sir Thomas Hudson 11 October 1875 - 4 April 1945

Born in Adelaide, Australia a younger son of Thomas Hudson Beare of Netley, Adelaide. Educated at Prince Alfred College and the University of Adelaide. He came to Britain some time before 1887 when, at the young age of 29, he became Professor of Engineering in Heriot Watt Collere, Edinburgh. Two years later he moved to London as Professor of Mechanical Engineering at University College, and in 1901 he returned to Edinburgh as Regius Professor of Engineering in the University of Edinburgh. In 1914 he became Dean of the Faculty of Science. He was knighted in 1926, and in 1936 he received the honorary degree of LL.D.

Besides his professional and entomological activities Beare engaged in many other pursuits too. He was a Captain in the First Volunteer Division of the Royal Engineers; Chairman of the North Edinburgh Unionist Association, an original member of the Miners Welfare Committee; and a member of the Sanitary Protection Association.

Beare's first publication on the Coleoptera 'Chrysomela goettingensis at Box Hill' appeared in the Ent.mon.Mag., 29, 1693, 193, and was followed by many others. He was particularly adept at writing regional notes, and later compiled lists of additions to the British fauna. Beare at one time lived on the edge of Richmond Park where he did a considerable amount of collecting (see for example Entomologist's Rec.J.Var., X, i898, 146-150) and it was while living there that he first met Horace Donisthorpe (QV). Donisthorpe later recorded that their friendship lasted almost fifty years during which time 'we have spent many happy days together collecting beetles all over England and Scotland (Ent.mon.Mag., 76, 1940, 187 and Entomologist's Rec.J.Var., 52, 1940, 107-8.

These trips led to several joint publications including their well known Catalogue of British Coleoptera, published by Janson in 1904. This was subsequently revised by Beare alone as A Catalogue of the Recorded Coleoptera of the British Isles (1930)- It was while staying with Beare at Nethy Bridge in 1908 that Donisthorpe took Anaspis hudsoni, which he named after him (Entomologist's Rec.J.Var., 21, 1909, 60. Now relegated as a junior synonym of A. rufilabris (Gyll.)). Beare added several species to the British list including Thanasimus rufipes Brahm, Aulonium trisulcum Geoff., Olophrum assimile Payk., Aulonium ruficorne Oliv., and Corticeus fraxinii Kug..  

Beare's collection passed to Edinburgh University then on loan from the University to the RSM. It consistsof one cabinet of 44 drawers, and is accompanied by a brown paper parcel, numbered 151, which contains a volume entitled Records of Captures of British Coleoptera by T. Hudson Beare (arranged alphabetically with an index) with, inside it, a smaller volume titled Additional species sent to the Hudson Beare Collection (apparently in 1944). The collection has been worked over by Kevan and Waterston and re-attributed insects have been left in their original locations. Gaps indicate that some species are missing. Other specimens collected by Beare are in E.C.Bedwell's collection at the Castle Museum, Norwich. Donisthorpe records that Beare kept only his own captures.

Arthur Ewing and John Owen inform me that the Central Library, George Square, Edinburgh has a copy of Fowler copiously annotated by Beare which was formerly in the Zoology Department at Edinburgh University, but was removed because it was considered ‘too valuable’ to remain there.

The only obituary seems to be that by Donisthorpe quoted.

FRES 1896, Vice-President in 1910 and 1932, and served for four periods on the Council. (MD 10/03)

BAYNES, Edward Stuart Augustus d. May 1972 aged 82

Published 'Abnormal growth of a mandible of Lucanus cervus L.’ in Ent.mon.Mag., 82, 1946,196. Lived at Monkshatch Cottage, Compton, Guildford. (MD 9/01)

BAYLIS, Ernest

Published 'Coleoptera at Ipswich in 1895' in Naturalists Journal, The Organ of the Economic and Educational Museum, Huddersfield, 5 (43), 1896, 3-4, in which he gives a monthly breakdown of all the coleoptera taken amounting to more than 90 records. (I am grateful to Tony Drane for bringing this paper to my notice and for furnishing me with a copy) (MD 1/22)

BAYFORD, Edwin Goldthorp 1865 - 10 December 1958

Lived throughout his life in Yorkshire and took a keen interest in local history and literature in the county, of which he possessed a fine library. From 1920 he was a member of the Yorkshire Dialect Society.

Bayford started by collecting Lepidoptera, but B.P. Uvarov notes that 'the chance finding of a longhorn beetle in 1883 turned his attention to the Coleoptera’ (Proc.RESL, 24(C), 1959-60, 52). Bayford's first entomological article, on the Hessian fly, was published in the Ent., 1887, and his first Coleoptera note, on Monochammus sartor F. in Ent.mon.Mag., 29, 1893, 43. Subsequently he published many notes in the Naturalist (Hull) and in the Ent.mon.Mag., until 1926. Latterly these included accounts of the meetings of the Entomological Section of the Yorkshire Naturalists Union, of which he was Secretary and later Chairman, and at the meetings of which he frequently showed beetles. He was also a member of the South West Yorkshire Entomological Society. Bayford's friends included Dr Corbett. He owned the Rev. Tylden's copy of Stevens's Manual (Ent.mon.Mag., 49, 1913,111).

Bayford's collection passed to the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery (Accession number Z.199.56) where it has been incorporated with the general collection. The collection and what it contained is mentioned by Bayford himself in Quarterly Transactions of the Barnsley Naturalist’s Society, V, 1885-6, 1-3. A collection of correspondence including 466 letters mostly to him from amongst others G.T. Porritt, W.D. Roebuck., T. Sheppard and M.L. Thompson, as well as members of his family, is in the NHM together with a typed index. Some of the letters relate to the Yorkshire Coleoptera survey and others to the compilation of the insect section of the VCH. (MD 9/01)

BAXTER, John

Duff (1993) records ‘little is known about John Baxter, an assistant in the Chemistry Laboratories at Downside School during the 1950s who collected exclusively, if not particularly assiduously, in Somerset (J.H. Kemp, pers. comm..) It appears that Baxter inherited J.V. Blachford’s collection and added his specimens to it, and it was Baxter who gave Blachford’s collection to the University of Bath.’ (MD 1/22)

BATTEN, E.B.

There are beetles bearing this name, collected in the Plymouth area, in the D.G.Hall collection in Baldock Museum (information from Trevor James). Is this perhaps the A.K.Batten who is listed as a member of the AES from 1974-8 and gives his address as Ringmer, Sussex? (MD 8/17)

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