Biographical dictionary
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| Name | Dates | Biography | |
|---|---|---|---|
| LAST, Horace Rupert | 15 August 1908 - 4 April 1995 | Born in Walthamstow, Essex, the son of a railway signalman. Attended the local state school leaving at age 14. Became a keen member of the Boy’s Brigade and a devout Methodist. Spent his professional life with Twinings, the tea merchants, where he was a taster, travelling representative and buyer (although this did not involve travel abroad except to the Channel Islands) before becoming Managing Director of Tuke Mennell, a subsidiary. He married in 1933 and set up home in Banstead, Surrey where he remained until 1971 when he retired to Storrington, W. Sussex. Last’s interest in entomology was stimulated by the Rev. G.H.G.Raynor of Brampton, Huntingdonshire, where he went to stay with his uncle, and centred at first on the Lepidoptera. His interest in beetles, and particularly the Staphylinidae of which he built up an extensive world wide collection, developed later through the encouragement of W.O.Steel and Malcolm Cameron. He also corresponded with numerous continental and British Coleopterists (many of whom are listed by Jonathan Cooter in his obituary of Last in EMM.,132, 1996,77-80, from which much of this account is taken). The first of Last’s 154 entomological publications were two papers on Lepidoptera in 1933 and 1938, and his first on Coleoptera, ‘Malthodes crassicornis in Surrey’, appeared in EMM., 79, 1943, p.113. His first new species was a Scymaenid from Surrey Euconnus murielae (ibid., 81, 1945, 275). In 1951 he published ‘A List of the Coleoptera of Jersey’ (Bull.a.Soc. jersiaise., 15, 347-364, subsequently updated several times) and this was followed in 1976 by ‘The Coleoptera of the Bailiwick of Guernsey’ (Proc.Trans. BENHS, 9, 1976, 32-33). The first of his more than 100 papers on foreign Staphylinidae, ‘New species of Staphylinidae from Africa’ appeared in 1952 (EMM., 88, 89-92). In all he described 4 new genera, 4 new sub-genera, 582 new species, 1 new subspecies and 18 new forms. Paederus cooteri from Papua New Guinea was named after his friend. Amongst his other papers was an obituary of another friend C.E.Tottenham. There is a full bibliography in the obituary cited above. Last’s foreign collections amounting to some 31,000 specimens (originally housed in a 75 drawer cabinet and 70 store boxes and sundry cartons) passed in 1992 to the Manchester Museum and is particularly strong in African Zyras and Paederini, and New Guinea Staphylinidae. A detailed account of his involvement with the museum and of his collections there is given by Colin Johnson in EMM, 132, 1996, 80. His British collection is also housed at Manchester (15,000 Staphylinidae, now in 21 drawers and several boxes, and 5,000 other specimens) presented by Jonathan Cooter to whom Last gave it. Several hundred types of all species are present in the foreign collection. There are also many of his earlier types in the NHM. Last’s specialised library of books and papers on Staphylinidae also passed to Manchester together with his card indices and notebooks. Johnson notes that ‘registration of specimens played an important role in Horace’s work on beetles. Most of them have a letter and a number written on the back of the card mount, which relates to information written in his notebooks. Sometimes there is additional information given in the notebooks...’ Trogophloeus lasti was named after him by Scheerpeltz in 1946. Listed as a subscriber to the Coleopterists Newsletter in 1981. FRES from 1948. Member BENHS from 1941 and Hon. Life member 1991. Joined AES 1938. Cooter’s obituary includes a signed photograph. (MD 11/03, 11/09, 1/22) |
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| LAST, Joseph Thomas | 1849 – 1933 | Born at Tuddenham, Suffolk and became a missionary in East Africa where he travelled extensively and acquired a reputation for his ability to speak the Swaheli language. After the abolition of slavery in 1897 he was appointed Commissioner of Slavery for Zanzibar in the Administration of Sir Lloyd Matthews. Last was not a Coleopterist as such but a very active collector. H.W.Bates named two species after him Epomis lasti and Chlaenius lasti (from among many new species sent to him by Last from Zanzibar, see EMM., 22, 1886, pp.189-197 and 23, 1886, pp.9-13). Last also collected plants which he sent to Kew and molluscs (land and marine) a large collection of which was at one time in Bognor Regis Museum. He died at ‘Pendaleige’, Scotts Lane, Beckenham, Kent, leaving a widow and six children. FRGS and Life Fellow on 27 February 1912..(I am grateful to the late Horace Last (no relative) for providing much of the above information). (MD 11/03) | |
| LAWSON, Robert | Lived in Scarborough and is described by G.B.Walsh in his article on Coleoptera in Natural History of the Scarborough District (c.1950, p.196) as ‘the first Scarborough Coleopterist, was contemporaneous with T.Wilkinson, the well-know Lepidopterist, and was said by E.C.Rye to be the first beetle-collector in Europe’. Exactly what Rye meant by this is unclear since Lawson was clearly not the first chronologically. He was presumably being complimentary, but the description is also surprising in this context given the wealth of more famous names. Equally puzzling is Walsh’s reference to Thomas Wilkinson who, as far as I know, was a well known Coleopterist and not a Lepidopterist. Lawson published four notes on Coleoptera in EMM: ‘Potaminus substriatus near Scarborough’ (5.1868, p.143), ‘Note on a capture of Nitidula flexuosa’ (8, 1872, p.248), ‘Note on a deformed antenna in Hydroporus obsoletus’ (8, 1872, pp.288-89) and ‘Note on swarms of Bruchus’ (9, 1873, p.217). Lawson sent specimens to Gorham (see Gorham diary in Birmingham Museum eg. 12 September 1871). He is also mentioned in Oliver Janson’s diary at Cambridge in connection with purchases by his father in February 1876. (MD 11/03) | ||
| LEACH, William Elford | 1790 – 25 August 1836 | Born at Plymouth and after studying medicine at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, London, went to Edinburgh where he graduated MD in 1812. He immediately abandoned this profession, however, in order to take up natural history and in 1813 he was appointed Assistant Librarian , and had risen by 1821 to be Keeper of the Natural History Department in the British Museum. Here he studied molluscs in particular, many of his publications being on this subject, but he also worked on the bird and entomology collections which he re-arranged according to the ‘natural’ system of Cuvier and Latreille. William Stearn, The Natural History Museum at South Kensington (1981), has described Leach as ‘a brilliant and lively young man... who made natural history excursions even to the Orkney Islands and visited Cuvier in Paris... Young John Edward Gray visiting the Museum at the age of sixteen found Leach a stimulating, inspiring companion and Leach took to him’. But there was also another side to Leach for which he became infamous ‘He despised the taxidermy of Sir Hans Sloane’s age and made periodical bonfires of Sloanian specimens’. Unfortunately his work at the Museum injured his health and in 1821 (the year in which he brought George Samouelle into the Museum) he was obliged to retire. The last few years of his life were spent with his sister in Italy where he died of cholera at the Palazzo St. Sebastiano near Tortona. The Coleoptera were said to be Leach’s favourite insect group and this is supported by the numerous references to him in Stephens (1828 -) who described him as ‘my highly valued friend’. Leach is recorded to have made the first British capture of Carabus intricatus ‘under a stone in a wood opposite the virtuous Lady Mine on the river Tavy below Tavistock in Devonshire’. His best known publications were in the Dictionnaire des Sciences Naturelles and The Zoological Miscellany which appeared in 3 volumes in 1814, 1815 and 1817, including many descriptions of new genera and species of Coleoptera. (particularly: in the water beetles: Laccophilus, Hydaticus, Acilius, Cercyon, Hydrobius; the Histeridae: Abraeus, Dendrophilus, Onthophilus; the Silphidae: Necrodes, Thanatophilus, Oiceoptama, Phosphuga; the Pselaphidae: Tychus, Bythinus, (Rybaxis) longicornis, Bryaxis curtisii, (Reichenbachia) juncorum) and the Scarabeidae: Typhaeus. Other papers on beetles were ‘An account of two species of Clytra’ (Trans.ESL. 1809, pp.248-249); two papers on Meloe in Trans.LSL., 1815, pp.35-43 and 242-25, with several hand-coloured plates (in the first of these he refers to ‘having in my cabinet all the British species hitherto discovered’); ‘Characters of a new genus of Coleopterous insects of the family Byrrhidae [Murmidius ferrugineus]’ (Trans.LSL., 13(1), 1822, p.41); ‘On the stirpes and genera composing the family Pselaphidae; with descriptions of some new species [includes Tychus, Bythinus, Rybaxis longicornis and Reichenbachia juncorum]’ Zool.J.Lond., 2, 1825, pp.445-453; and ‘On the characters of Abbotia, a new genus belonging to the family Histeridae, with descriptions of two species’ (Trans. Plymouth Inst. 8, 19830, pp.155-157. Leach purchased part of Francillon’s collection in June 1818. FRS 1817, FLS and a member of numerous foreign societies. There is an entry in DNB with list of sources, and further sources are listed by Gilbert (1977). (MD 11/03) | |
| LEADBEATER | Smith (1986) p.133 records that W.Bainbridge purchased insects from India, mainly Coleoptera, from Leadbeater for Hope in 1841. (MD 11/03) | ||
| LEAN, William | Published a ‘Note on Lamia textor’ in Zool. 7, 1849, pp.2404-05. (MD 11/03) | ||
| LEDBETTER | Simms (1968) records material from Ledbetter in the W.C. Hey collection at York. (MD 12/21) |
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| LEECH, H.B. | Exchanged 176 specimens of Coleoptera with the HDO in 1932. (Smith (1986), p.133). (MD 11/03) | ||
| LEECH, John Henry | 5 December 1862 - 29 December 1900 | Collected Carabidae in Kashmir and Baltistan published by H.W.Bates in Proc.ZSL., 1889, pp.210-215. Smith (1986) p.133 records that there are Lepidoptera in the HDO from China, Japan and Tibet collected by him; Chalmers-Hunt (1976) p.139 that he sold Lepidoptera at Stevens’ on 8 May 1902; and Harvey et al (1996) p.122 that there is a MS notebook concerning Lepidoptera in the NHM. Pedersen (2002) p. 61 records correspondence with Herbert Druce in the RESL dated 22 August 1896[?]. (MD 11/03, 11/09) | |
| LEEMING, D.J. | He is listed by James,T.J. (2018) as providing a special contribution either in the form of a comprehensive site list or a substantial number of records (MD 1/22) |