Biographical dictionary
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| Name | Dates | Biography | |
|---|---|---|---|
| LEFKOVITCH, Leonard Philip | Lived at 5 Manfield Mews, London W.1 and had a special interest in Coleoptera. FRES from 1957. (MD 11/03). | ||
| LEMAN, G.C. | Published ‘New aberrations of, and miscellaenous notes on Coccinellids’ in ERJV., 40, 1928, pp.34-37. Donisthorpe gave a miscellaneous collection of Swiss insects made by Leman to the HDO in 1925 (Smith (1986) p.133). (MD 11/03) | ||
| LENNON, William | 1818 – 30 October 1899 | Born in Dryfesdale, Scotland and died in Dumfries. By trade a shoemaker he is recorded to have been associated with Sir E.Vavasour. His collection is mentioned by T. Hudson Beare in EMM., 37, 1901, p.99: ‘It may be of interest to put on record that this collection [late Mr Lennon’s collection of British Coleoptera] has now become public property; it has been acquired, by purchase, by the Museum of Science and Art, Edinburgh [RSM]. I had the pleasure of looking through the collection when in Edinburgh on December 27th last; it is in good condition, and very rich in specimens collected in the counties of the south-west district of Scotland (the Solway District); I believe there are over 1200 species in the collection from this district alone’. The RSM register records that it was purchased for £19.10s and that it included 23,293 specimens representing 2,491 species. Its acquisition number is 1900.132. The museum also holds a marked up check list by Lennon and a MS Area list. Lennon is mentioned in Oliver Janson’s diary at Cambridge as a presenter of specimens to his father.There is an obituary by R.Service in Ann,Scott.nat.Hist, 1900, pp.134-6 which I have not seen. (MD 11/03) | |
| LETTSOM, John Coakley | d. before 1828 | A Doctor who published The Naturalist’s and Traveller’s Companion, containing Instructions for Collecting and Preserving Objects of Natural History, 1774. Presumably this is the same Lettsom whose collection is mentioned by Stephens (1828), I, p.57. His library was sold by Leigh and Sotheby between March 26 and April 3 1811 and included 1347 lots. (MD 11/03) | |
| LEWCOCK, G.A. | Mentioned in Elliman (1902) as a collector of Coleoptera in the Watford and St. Albans area. Published ‘The British Coccinellidae’ in ERJV., 3, 1892, pp.149-150. Sold a collection of Coleoptera at Stevens’ auction rooms on January 20 1896 (Chalmers-Hunt (1976) p.130) There are beetles from London and Ireland bearing this name in the G.A.Hall collection at Oldham (information from Simon Hayhow). (MD 11/03) | ||
| LEWIS, Ernest Sidney | 27 April 1924 – 2 January 2009 | Born in South Norwood and lived with his father John, a carpenter, mother and older sister. Attended the John Ruskin School, Croydon, leaving at the outbreak of War in 1939 without qualifications. He was not called up for active service perhaps because he was underweight for his height. Instead, he joined the Continental Union Trust in 1941 as a book-keeper. He was quickly appointed Company Secretary and thirty three years later, after moving to Warlingham, gained Fellowship of the Institute of Chartered Secretaries. He retired in 1984 and moved to Chagford, Devon in 1990. Jonathan Cooter who wrote his obituary in EMM, 145, 2009, 253-54, states that Lewis was both a good all round naturalist and a Coleopterist: ‘he collected widely in the south east of England particularly around Croydon...Ernest’s interest in Phalacridae began around 1954 after seeking advice from E.B.Britton who, after discussion with J. Balfour-Browne, directed Ernest to this neglected family. Ernest took up the study with energy and enthusiasm and became, in the opinion of a mutual friend of both myself and Ernest, Ing. Zdenek Svec (Prague), the most accomplished authority on the Phalacridae. Ernest was of the opinion that major revisions were the way forward and did not describe individual species in a piecemeal fashion’. Lewis is thanked by R.T.Thompson for reading the ms of his Phalacridae Handbook. To British Coleopterists he is best known as the discoverer of Omophrum limbatum at Rye. (EMM 106, 1970, pp.219-221) Lewis’s early interest in entomology was such that in 1946 he joined both the AES and the Croydon Natural History Society, and in the following year the BENHS, then the South London, too. Of the Croydon Society he was Honorary Treasurer 1961-1970 and a founding Director in 1967; of the AES he was President in 1987/88 and of BENHS he was made a Special Life Member in 1997. It was meetings of the Croydon NHS that he met Connie Catchpole whom he married in June 1965. They had one son, David. The present writer is grateful to Lewis for providing information about a number of Coleopterists for this Dictionary. His letters were sometimes hand written in an attractive and distinctive copperplate script which fits so well with Cooter’s description of him attending field meetings in a business suit and black shoes. His collection was bequeathed to the HDO. (MD 11/09) | |
| LEWIS, George W. | 5 August 1839 – 5 September 1926 | Born in Blackheath, the second son of the Rev. R.G.Lewis, Vicar of St. John’s Church. Became interested in beetles as a boy and continued the interest when he was sent to China at the age of 23 as the representative of a firm engaged in the tea trade, Arrow who wrote his obituary in EMM., 62, 1926, p.144 notes that ‘A great part of his Chinese collection seems to have been lost through transport difficulties, but a number of previously unknown species were described, notably of Carabidae, by H. W.Bates.’ And a list of the genera was published by Lewis in Zoo. 21, 1863, pp.8652-53. From China Arrow records that Lewis travelled to Japan in 1867, but he had clearly visited there before because he sent notes from Nagasaki to the first issues of the EMM –‘I have all the trees to myself. Longicornes and Curculionidae are fine and common...’ – dated July 1864 and May 1865. Arrow states that he remained in Japan until 1872 ‘amassing a remarkable collection... of which a large proportion were new to science’. He then returned to England but made a second journey to Japan in 1880 with his wife (formerly Julia Hunter) where he remained for a further two years travelling extensively, particularly to places he had not visited earlier, and with the help of a local assistant whom he trained himself. The result of both trips was the formation of a remarkable collection which when acquired by the NHM in 1910 ‘contained the types of so large a proportion of the known species of Japanese Coleoptera that they will probably never be equalled in importance by any collections which may be brought together in the same country.’ On return from his second trip he stopped in Ceylon for six months, where he also made a large collection. Itineraries of both the second Japanese journey and the Ceylon journey were published by H.W.Bates in Trans.ESL and he also published many of Lewis’ new species eg. ‘Longicorn Beetles of Japan. Additions, chiefly from the later collections of Mr George Lewis’, JournaI LSL., 18, 1884, pp.205-262, and ‘On the Geodephagous Coleoptera collected by Mr George Lewis in Ceylon’ AMNH, 17, 1886, pp.68-81, 143-156, 199-212 Settling back in England after 1882 Lewis devoted himself, with the help of many experts, to his collections and published many descriptions of new species. In working on the Japanese Histeridae he discovered that this family was little known in the rest of the world and he determined to form a collection, becoming, finally, so engrossed that most of his time was spent on it. Between 1884 and 1915 he published 60 genera and 750 species of Histerids. This collection he bequeathed to the NHM. There are several dozen specimens including Ptiliidae bearing Lewis’s name from Japan and Ceylon in the Mason collection at Bolton. Smith (1986) p.133 records that Lewis gave to the HDO specimens of Syntelia histeroides from Japan and Prostomis schlegeli from Ceylon in 1885; Rare beetles of the families Rhysodidae, Carabidae, Cucujidae, etc., mainly from Japan in 1887 and specimens of Paussus chevrolati in 1889. Pedersen (2002) p. 61 records correspondence with Herbert Druce dated 12 January 1900 in the RESL. FRES 1876-1926 (Council 1878, 1884). (MD 11/03) | |
| LEWIS, H. | Mentioned in Gimingham (1955) as a collector of Coleoptera in Hertfordshire. (MD 11/03) | ||
| LEWIS, John Spedan | 22 September 1885 – 21 February 1963 | Founder of the supermarket chain John Lewis. Primarily a Lepidopterist and Dipterist but he did build up a collection of Coleoptera after moving to Leckford, Hants. In 1963 this was housed at Longstock House, Leckford, the home of the John Spedan Lewis Trust. FRES 1908-1962. (MD 11/03) | |
| LEWIS, Keith Charles | b.6 June 1932 - 2008 | Not to be confused with Ernest Lewis (1924-2009). Born in Plumstead, Left school at 14 to work in an office in the City but left after 9 months and spent remainder of working life in two large engineering companies until he retired in 1986 through ill health. First inspired to take up entomology by F.Goode, an early AES member, who he met on holiday in Cornwall. Spent 2 years in Egypt (1950-52). During the 1960s carried out a great deal of work for L. Hugh Newman at his farm in Bexley, Kent and setting work for R.N.Baxter, World Wide Butterflies and R.L.E.Ford.. Discovered Staphylinus caesareus in Kent (Joydens Wood) in 1966 and the second and third records of Synchita humeralis in West Kent in 1995 (Chalk Wood, Bexley). Has published twelve or so notes in the Bulletin of the AES, some illustrated with his own drawings. These include ‘Swarm of Ocypus olens’ (50, 1991, p.20) and ‘Coleoptera trapped over a twelve-month period [in Chalk Wood, Kent – handful of species only] (ibid, pp.29-33). His longest paper has been on records of Arhopalus rusticus. which he found in Joydens Wood, and four specimens of which were given to NHM including Otiorhynchus parvicollis and Onthophagus furcatus whichy he found at Kew Gardens looking around recently imported plants (Information from Max Barclay) Lewis’s collection includes many specimens given to him by A.A.Allen after he told him that many of the beetles he had collected were destroyed in a burglary, and specimens purchased from L.Christie at AES exhibitions in the late 1990s. The collectors represented include: H.M.Edelston, L.H.Walker, J.A.Owen, L.Wakely, G.H.Ashe, H.Donisthorpe, C.Jarvis, M.Hall, K.Blair, A.A.Allen,Canon Grensted, H.J.Cribb, H.Dinnage, B.J.Macnulty, L.Christie, E.A.Duffy, and F.D.Buck, J.Cooter, J.Bartup, H.Dinnage, R.W.Lloyd, H.C.Dollman, T.R.Eagles, E.Eustace, R.L.E.Ford, F.C.Fraser, A.W.Gould, P.Harwood, C.N.Hawkins, J.L.Henderson, A.W.Hughes, O.Janson,C.MacKechnie Jarvis, R.R.Kauffmann, P.H.Langton, MacDermott, A.M.Massee, K.M.Perry, Power colln., G.H.L.Thompson, D.Tozer, A.C.Vine, J.J.Walker, L.S.Whicher, L.H.Woollatt. (Information from KCL). (MD 11/03, 12/06, 2/20) |