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
BARTUP, J. K.C.Lewis tells me that there are specimens collected by Bartup in his collection. (MD12/06)
BARTON, Stephen 1826 - 17 November 1898

Died at the age of 78. In 1852 Barton visited Australia where he resided for two or three years and made extensive collections of Coleoptera including many which were new to science. Some of these were described by his friend Henry Walter Bates. He also collected at the Cape and other places en route. He hoped at one time to join Bates in South America but when this fell through he settled down to business in Bristol where he is recorded in Ent. Ann., 1860, at Quay Head Street. His interests in Coleoptera continued and he is recorded to have built up very extensive collections of foreign and British specimens. For over thirty years he was President of the Entomological Section of the Bristol Naturalists' Society, and he long acted as Honorary Curator to the Entomological Department of the Bristol Museum, making various important contributions to the collections. His own collections were sold by Stevens on 27-28 March 1899.

There are obituaries in Proc.Ent.Soc.Lond., 1898, iiv (by IR. Trimin) and in Ent.mon.Mag., 35, 1899, 16 (by A.E.Hudd)

FES 1865. . (MD 9/01)

BARTON, Lewis F.

Published a number of notes on interesting captures of beetles in Ent.mon.Mag., including 'Coleoptera in Surrey and Hampshire’ (43, 1907, 253); 'Coleoptera at Newcastle, etc., in 1909' (46, 1910, 189-190); 'A new locality for Aulonium trisulcum Geoff.' (71, 1935, 226) and three notes on 'Crioceris lilii Scop. in Chobham; Surrey'(76, 1940, 236, 77, 1941, 278, and 79, 1943, 18,19).

This is presumably the E.S. Barton listed by Smith (1986) as giving 31 specimens of Criocerus lilii from Chobham illustrating its life history to the HDO in 1942. Barton is first recorded at The Retreat, Guildford Road, Woking, Surrey and later at Pepperstitch, Bagshot Road, Chobham, Surrey. (MD 9/01)

BARTON, C.S.

Arrow, J.G., Rutelinae, Desmonycinae, Euchirinae, FBI, 1917, 222, records that he collected Rutelinae in Burma. (MD 9/01)

BARTLETT, J.P.

Listed by Lott (2009), 10, as a collector in Leicestershire in 1848. (MD 11/09)

BARTLETT, H.F.D. d. 1940

Lived for many years on the Isle of St. Helena where he worked on the beetle fauna. He considered that the beetle population had declined since the publication of Woollaston's work (1877) largely owing to the disappearance before cultivation of much of the native forest. There is a short obituary in Proc.RESL., 5, 1940-41, 40. FES 1907. (MD 9/01)

BARTLETT, Charles

Published 'Acanthocinus aedilis L. in N. Devon' and 'A note on Coleoptera in drift pine logs' in Ent.mon.Mag., 54, 1918, 137-8 and 57, 1921, 15, respectively. Bartlett gives his address as Morwenstow, Woodhill, Portishead, Somerset. In 1906 the Naturalist’s Directory records him living at Westbury on Trymm, Bristol. He also published notes on the Lepidoptera. Atty (1983), iii-iv, records that Bartlett was a contributor to V.R. Perkins' Gloucestershire list and that he flourished as a Coleopterist c.1895-1900 (MD 9/01, 2/08, 8/17)

BARTINDALE, Guy William Roberts 30 April 1917 - 25 January 2002

Born at Chester, the son of Guy Cecil Bartindale (see above) and lived in Macclesfield opposite the school where his father taught. Went up to Balliol College Oxford (his father’s old College) where he read chemistry graduating with a BA in 1939. After a spell of work, and at Leeds University as a research chemist, he returned to Oxford for a D. Phil. awarded in 1949. Moved to Manchester University in 1948 as Assistant Lecturer, then Lecturer, in Physical Chemistry at the College of Technology (UMIST) where he remained until retirement in 1982. He married Mary Elizabeth Broomhead of Macclesfield in 1959.

In his obituary of Bartindale in Ent.mon.Mag., 139, 2003, 187-189, Colin Johnson states that he ‘started collecting beetles with great enthusiasm at the age of 15 and much of his early collecting around Macclesfield was done with the aid of a bicycle... public transport, especially the railways [took him] to Wales and South West England, although Scotland and abroad seem not to have been visited.’ He continued collecting whilst at Oxford and joined the Manchester Entomological Society in October 1934 where he was a regular exhibitor at meetings and gave papers to the Society some of which were published. He also met and exchanged specimens with George Kloet and Ted Aubrook. In this respect his interest pre-dated that of his father who did not join until 1936.'

Another acquaintance of Bartindale’s was Johnson himself. They first met at the Society meetings in the late 1950s and, when Johnson joined the Manchester Museum in 1961 ‘He often came in to talk about beetles and, as the years went by, I was able to help him myself increasingly with identifications of the more difficult groups... He was an outstanding field collector, who had an incredible knowledge of British beetles... aided by a meticulously maintained card index...’

Bartindale published 5 articles, 3 with his father as the senior author, and 2 by himself: 'Feronia angustata (Duft) in Lancashire and Cheshire' in Ent.mon.Mag., 86, 1950, 315, and ‘On occurrences of Acrulia inflata Gyll. in the North Midlands’, ibid., 98, 1962, 3. Duff (1993), 5, records that Bartindale 'visited Somerset with his father... in 1935. According to a letter from G.C. Bartindale to W.A. Wilson dated 14 January 1951, held in the Wilson archives at Taunton County Museum, the son was responsible for all of their identifications.'

Johnson (2004), 6-7, records that his collection amounting to 20,000 specimens in 29 storeboxes and including that of his father, together with extensive notebooks, card indices of records and correspondence, was acquired by Manchester Museum in 2002. The insects were affected by corroded pins, dust and mould before accession and included a paratype of Adota immigrans (Easton). In his obituary Johnson notes that the collection includes much exchanged material, especially from friends and collectors during his earlier days, including J.J. Walker. Specimens are mostly pre-war, dating back to 1932, but there are a few collected during the early 1980s at Cheadle Hulme and in North Wales. A number of boxes of duplicates and other material are also present.'

I have also seen specimens collected by Bartindale in 1934 in the Doncaster Museum, and Pedersen (2002), 84, lists a letter to D.J. Jackson in the RES. The obituary mentioned above includes a full bibliography and portrait. (MD 9/01, 10/03, 11/09)

BARTINDALE, Guy Cecil and G.W.R. GWR 1883-1955

Father and son. Lived at 16 Lostock Avenue, Poynton, Cheshire and before that at 156 Cumberland Street, Macclesfield, Cheshire. They are best known for their joint article 'The Coleoptera of the Macclesfield District' in EMM, 84, 1948, 130-138. In this they recorded that they had started collecting beetles in the neighbourhood of Macclesfield in about 1932 and by 1948 had taken over 950 species. Most of their determinations were made by H. Britten (but see below). A supplement to the list was published in Ent.mon.Mag., 86, 1950, 121-3, and in the same volume G.W.R. published 'Feronia angustata (Duft) in Lancashire and Cheshire’ (315). G.W.R. Bartindale is recorded as D. Phil.

I have seen specimens collected by G.W.R. Bartindale in 1934 in the Doncaster Museum. Duff (1993), 5, records that Bartindale visited coastal west Somerset in August-September 1935 and again in May 1946. He sent one list to Taunton Museum (which I have not traced) and in January 1951 a different list to W.A. Wilson, held in the Wilson archives at Taunton. According to a letter from G.C. Bartindale to W.A. Wilson, in this archive, the son was responsible for all their identifications. Followed on 22 March by a page of amendments’. Johnson (2004), 6, records that Bartindale’s collection amounting to c. 1,000 specimens was acquired by Manchester Museum in 2002 incorporated into that of his son Guy William (see below). (MD 9/01,10/03, 11/09)

BARROW, William H. c.1857 – after Aug 1945

A doctor and teacher of music who lived in Leicestershire. Lott (2009), 27, notes that he first appears in the reports of the entomology section of the Leicestershire Literary and Philosophical Society in 1902 when he ‘gave a fine exhibition of microscope slides illustrating various points in the anatomy of the order Coleoptera’ and remained active in the county until 1945. He was acquainted with the father of W. Hunt, a Barnstable Coleopterist who was also a music teacher, and with S.O. Taylor, the Leicester Coleopterist and organ builder. On Barrow’s collection see TAYLOR, S.O. (MD 11/09)

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