Biographical dictionary
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| Name | Dates | Biography | |
|---|---|---|---|
| DENNY, Henry | 1803 - 7 March 1871 | Born in Norwich. Lived there until 1825 when he moved to Leeds following his appointment as Sub-Curator (later re-titled Curator and Assistant Secretary) of the Leeds Philosophical Society. He was also Secretary to the West Riding Geological and Polytechnic Society which involved various duties including the preparation for publication of the Transactions. To both Societies he contributed frequent papers on a wide range of subjects including entomology. Denny's interest in beetles was mainly confined to the period before 1825 when he published his well-known Monographia Pselaphidarum et Scydmaenidarum Britanniae or an ‘Essay on the British species of the Genera Pselaphus, of Herbst. and Scydmaenus of Latreille in which those Genera are subdivided, and all the Species hitherto discovered in Great Britain are accurately described and arranged, with an indication of the Situations in which they are usually found: each Species illustrated by a highly magnified Figure’, and moved to Leeds. In Norwich he appears to have been in close contact with a number of entomologists including Rev. William Kirby, to whom he dedicated his book and thanked 'for innumerable instances of patronage, and personal favours', and Simon Wilkin, who printed and published it for him. He also knew George Samouelle who referred to him as 'our much respected friend'. The Monographia is remarkably detailed for its date, and although Denny occasionally ascribes the males and females of the same species to different species, two of his new Scydmaenidae Scydmoraphes sparshalli, and Stenichnus bicolor, and six of his new Pselaphidae: Bibloporus bicolor, Bibloplectus pusillus, Euplectus kirbyi, E. sanguineus, Bythinus burrelli and Bryaxis puncticollis still survive. Following his move to Leeds Denny seems to have devoted himself to the study of parasitic insects and he published only one further piece on the Coleoptera ‘Note on Clytus arietis’ in Ent. Mag., 2, 1834, p.114. His new interest eventually led to the publication of the Monographia Anoplurorum Britanniae, 1842, for which he received a special grant from the British Association, and to a catalogue of the Anoplura in the British Museum published in 1852. Some notes for his work on Anoplura are now in the HDO, including correspondence with Hope and Westwood. A collection of Anoplura, including some Darwin material, was purchased by Westwood from Denny's representatives after his death and is also in this institution. Apart from his close association with the Yorkshire Societies mentioned above Denny was also a Corresponding Member of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, and of the Syro-Egyptian Society in London; an Associate of the Linnean Society (from 19 December 1843); and an honorary Member of the Philosophical Society of Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and of the Yorkshire Philosophical Society. There is an obituary in Proc.LSL., 1870-71, pp.84-85. (MD 6/02) | |
| DENSON, John | Published ‘Scolytus destructor, not a destroyer of a healthy tree’ in Mag. nat. Hist., 4, 1831, pp.152-57. Also published notes on Diptera and Dermaptera. (MD 6/02) | ||
| DENTON, J.S. | He is listed by James,T.J. (2018) as providing a special contribution (MD 1/22) |
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| DENVIL, Horace Gaskell | 1901 - 17 September 1968 | All round naturalist with interests in birds and reptiles - he kept snakes, terrapins and an alligator until it outgrew its accomodation! - entomology and horticulture. Denvil was employed by the National Provincial Bank from 1917 until his retirement forty years later. He worked at first in the city of London but later moved to the Warwick Gardens branch where he had to represent the bank at Earls Court and Olympia exhibitions. He married in 1928 and had a twin son and daughter. Of his natural history interests entomology appears to have been his main concern. A.S. Wheeler recorded in his obituary notice of Denvil in Proc.BENHS., 2 (2),1969: ‘his interests, while centred upon the Coleoptera for the last 35 years or so, included an earlier specialisation in Lepidoptera.’ A collection of Coleoptera made by Denvil comprising some 600 specimens was purchased as part of the C. Norton collection by Bolton Museum in 1977 where it is maintained separately (Hancock and Pettit (1981)) K.C. Lewis tells me that there are also specimens in his collection. FRES; member of the Royal Horticultural Society; the Zoological Society of London; the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds; the BENHS (Wheeler notes that the requirements of his work at the bank sometimes prevented him from attending meetings but that he was otherwise an active participant) and the London Natural History Society. (MD 6/02) | |
| DERBY, Earl of | See STANLEY, Edward Smith | ||
| DERHAM, William | 26 November 1657 - 5 April 1735 | Published ‘A letter concerning an Insect that is commonly called Death-Watch’ in Philosophical Transactions, 22(271), 1701, pp.832-834. He was a Doctor of Theology who was born in Stowton and died in Upminster. He also published articles on wasps and other insects. (MD 6/02) | |
| DESVIGNES, Thomas | 1812 - 11 May 1868 | General entomologist known primarily for his work on varieties and speciation in Lepidoptera particularly Peronea cristana, and for his Catalogue of the British Ichneumonidae in the British Museum, 1856. He also worked on Coleoptera, however, particularly in the early part of his career when he published a ‘Note on Elater crocatus from Ziegler’, in Ent.Mag., 4, 1837, p.255; ‘New British Elater’ in Ent., 1, 1842, p.326, and ‘Captures in Shirewood Forest’, ibid., pp. 188-89. The new Elater, which he called Elater rufitarsis, was taken from rotten wood in Windsor Forest and is now synonymised with Ampedus nigerrimus (Lacordaire). The Shirewood list included some 37 rare species of Coleoptera. As late as 1856 when he was thoroughly immersed in the Ichneumonidae he still listed the Coleoptera before his other interests in Ent. Ann.. Desvignes died at Woodford, Essex where he had lived for at least ten years. His collection was sold by Stevens a few weeks later on 30 June 1868. The EMM noted that it was ‘altogether a fine one, and in the Ichneumonidae, as may be supposed, the finest ever formed of the British species. In the aculeate Hymenoptera it is also good, including as it does, the types of Schuckard's Fossores; and in the Coleoptera it is rich in Elateridae and Xylophaga, containing many rare species in other groups, and including Schuckard's collection. There is also a good collection of Diptera, to which order Mr Desvignes at one time paid considerable attention' (5, 1868, p.26). Part of this material appears to have been acquired by Edward Wesley Janson. Oliver Janson, his son, noted in his diary, now in the Cambridge University Zoological Museum, that his father had made a purchase at the sale. There are obituaries in EMM., 5, 1868-69, pp.25-26, and Trans.ESL., Proc. LVI, 1868. The latter, by Edward Newman, makes no mention of Coleoptera. (MD 6/02) | |
| DIBB, John Rothwell | 10 April 1906 - 5 May 1973 | An insurance broker who lived in the Leeds area of Yorkshire until the late 1940s when he moved to Nottingham. Although he worked on the Neuroptera, Diptera, Ephemeroptera and other orders, he is best known to entomologists for his Field Book of Beetles, 1948 and for the Passalidae sections of the Coleopterorum Catalogus. The latter was compiled in conjunction with W.D.Hincks, with whom he worked closely, and was the result of a detailed study of this group which Dibb had started in his early twenties. Many of the more than sixty articles which he contributed to the entomological press concerned Passalidae and included descriptions of numerous new species and genera. The Field Book was of particular interest because it was bionomic in arrangement and allowed determination of species on ecological criteria rather than conventional taxonomic lines. 2,500 species are included in the keys. I have in my library a single sheet headed ‘Beetle Natural History’, published by A. Brown and Sons, the publishers of Dibb's book, which gives details of a student's course which they organised based on the Field Book. The course comprised 22 lessons including many field trips to the different habitat groups listed by Dibb. It is not clear whether Dibb himself was the teacher. Dibb worked closely with W.D. Hincks and most collections are listed as being by both. The collection was dispersed several years before Dibb's death. Part went to the Leeds Museum, where it remained during the War (some specimens were lost through bombing). This part, consisting mainly of a world-wide collection built up by purchase between 1930 and 1940, which subsequently found its way to Manchester through Hincks, and where it was later united with other material which the museum acquired from Leeds. Adam Parker has pointed out to me that Simms (1968) mentions a collection of 6000 Carabidae, mainly north of England, in the Yorkshire Museum acquired in 1941. Other parts of collections went to the Museum at Nottingham and to the NHM. FRES from 1930 (with a short break in the late 1960s). There is an obituary by A.D.Lees in Proc.RESL., 38, 1973-74 (C), pp.58-59. (MD 6/02, 12/21) |
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| DIBB, Reginald Arthur Lawrence | Lived at Kirkella, East Yorkshire and collected Coleoptera. FRES from 1949. (MD 3/03) | ||
| DICKINSON, James A. | Worked at the Sheffield City Museum between 1971-73 when he contributed many Coleoptera to the collections (I am grateful to Steve Garland for this information). (MD 6/02) |