Biographical dictionary
The Biographical Dictionary of British Coleopterists was compiled by the late Michael Darby. The Dictionary can be accessed below, and see also the additional information provide by Michael:
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| Name | Dates | Biography | |
|---|---|---|---|
| ELLIMAN, E. George | Little seems to be known about Elliman who compiled the first list of Coleoptera for Hertfordshire in the Victoria County History of Hertfordshire, 1, 1902, pp.83-110, and who added to the list with notes in the Transactions of the Hertfordshire Natural History Society (eg. 12, 1905, p.168 and 13, 1907, p.10). For at least part of this time he lived in Tring and subsequently in Chesham, and he published notes on these Buckinghamshire sites in the EMM. (eg. 36, 1900, pp.11-12 and 236; 39, 1903, pp.18-19; 40, 1904, p.158; and 41, 1905, p.20). Later, his collecting extended to Cromer (ibid., 44, 1908, pp.274-75), Horning (ERJV., 7, 1896, pp.306-308), Llanfairfechan (EMM., 9, 1898, pp.257-258 and 10, 1899, pp.211-212) and to the Isle of Man. At the last he took Longitarsus curtus [Thyamis curta] All. which he confirmed as British. When working on the Hertfordshire fauna it is known that he collaborated with C.T.Gimingham. John Owen has pointed out to me that Atheta ellimani, which Elliman took in carrion at Carlisle, was named after him by Bernhauer in 1909. According to a typescript in the NMW, Elliman gave his collection of Staphylinidae to Tomalin in 1929. There is also evidence, however, that Tomalin bought a collection of Coleoptera from Elliman for £14 in this year and I have seen a receipted letter to this effect. It is not clear whether these are the same or different collections. Certainly Coleoptera from Elliman's collection passed to the NMW via Tomalin. According to information I have received from Trevor James a duplicate collection of Coleoptera to that now at Cardiff but without data labels exists in the St. Albans Museum. A further 23 beetles were given by Elliman to the NHM in 1898 (1898.236), and Trevor James also tells me that there are Elliman specimens in the D.G.Hall collection at Baldock. Two of Elliman's collecting diaries are preserved in the NMW. They include lists of numbers from 1-2331 (August 1891 - Oct 1896) and 2340-7084 (June 1896 - Aug 1907). I have not found any obituary notices. (MD 10/02) | ||
| ELLIOT | Tony Irwin informs me that there are specimens bearing the label Elliot in E.A.Butler’s foreign collection of Coleoptera and Hemiptera at Norwich Museum. (MD 10/03) | ||
| ELLIOT, Sir Walter | The NHM accessioned 16 Indian Coleoptera ‘taken out of glass tubes from Sir Walter Elliott’ in 1877 (1877.14). His entry in Oxford Dictionary of of National Biography, http://www.oxforddnb.com/index |
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| ELLIOTT, Ernest Arthur | 20 June 1850 - 14 March 1936 | Born in Calcutta the third son of William Henry Elliott, Chief Magistrate there (who refused a baronetcy and never dared to tell his wife!). He was educated in Brighton, Koblenz, Reading, and, after a short period of working in the City when his foot was badly crushed, at Repton. Elliott then undertook a training in forestry. This lead to his working in Saxony with Ratzeburg and von Siebold's ‘Merry Black Foresters’ between 1871-1873. At this time he also became an Unteroffizier in the Saxon Iagers and assisted at King John of Saxony's Jubilee. In 1873/74 he returned to India, where as a result of poor health and his eyes ‘giving way’, he failed to get into the Indian Forestry Service and was made an Assistant at Bombay. After only a short time in India Elliott travelled by windjammer round Cape Horn to Australia where he took up cattle ranching on the Paroo River, Queensland, and opal mining. In Australia he survived two fires, major floods, attacks by wild cattle, and another serious leg wound, before returning home in 1884 to live initially in London and later at St. Leonards. He married his cousin Agnes Warner in October 1899. Elliott's obituary in Trans. Suffolk Nat. Soc., 3 Proceedings, 1936, pp.cxvi-cxviii, records that although he showed an early interest in science, noting stag beetles at Sonning in 1860 and carrying out a botanical survey of Derbyshire in 1868, his main strength was as a collector ‘of coins, stamps and all objects of natural history’. In fact his great interest in natural history appears to have been focussed on the Coleoptera, on which he published a number of papers, and from 1920, the Hymenoptera. His work on the latter, which was encouraged by Claude Morley, resulted in the publication of an important monograph on world Stephanidae. Elliott's work on Coleoptera appears to have been concentrated chiefly on the Suffolk fauna and there are various references to him in Morley (1899). In the Introduction to this work Morley wrote: ‘My best thanks to my fidus Achates, Mr Ernest A. Elliott, F.I.Inst., etc., I will but mention. My obligations to him in this and in all matters scientific are too numerous and deep for mere wording’ (p.xiv); and in the First Supplement (1915), he added ‘Mr Ernest A. Elliott, F.Z.S., and I have continued to scour the county in every direction, as is our ancient wont’. Together with Morley he published a list of the Hymenopterous parasites of beetles in Trans.ESL., 1907 and 1908. Elliott had several brothers all of whom appear to have travelled extensively and to have collected Coleoptera which they sent to him. These may account for some of his various notes on foreign species eg. ‘Cionus luctuosus, Bohem at Tenerife’ (EMM., 38, 1902, p.220), and for some of his ten gifts of more than 1,800 beetles to the NHM from S. Africa, Canaries, India, Brazil, etc.(1897.262; 1898.130; 1902.153; 1903.279; 1903.279; 1908.17; 1908.24; 1909.66; 1910.98; 1912.192 and 1919.103). The bulk of his collection passed to the Hastings Museum, however, and there is an interesting note about this in the obituary mentioned above: ‘The great majority of the late Mr Ernest Elliott's collection of British Insects was amassed in Suffolk, where he had almost annually worked on the subject for full forty years, though usually during only odd fortnights. Most series of his excellent beetle cabinet, in particular, showed specimens from our county; and he had repeatedly stated his intention of willing it to its native soil for the use of local students, especially our own Members. He wrote from his St Leonards home to your Hon. Secretary: ‘I am thinking of making a new Will. Would you [Bury or Ipswich museums] like the cabinets of British Beetles, African Butterflies and Foreign Beetles?’ ... But no new Will had been drawn when he died six weeks later. The whole of his British Collections were given by his brother-in-law and executor, Evelyn H.V.Elliott of Braidlea, Ditchling, Sussex, in accordance with a deplorable ‘expressed wish’ of the testator, to the handy Hastings Museum... No more than his Atlantean insects and Tropic beetles came to Suffolk; these are open to Members’ examination at Monks Soham House’. Elliott of Braidlea, Ditchling, Sussex, in accordance with a deplorable 'expressed wish' of the testator, to the handy Hastings Museum... No more than his Atlantean insects and Tropic beetles came to Suffolk; these are open to Members' examination at Monks Soham House'. Since the above was written David Nash has published ‘A Little-Known Important Recorder of Suffolk Insects Ernest Arthur Elliott (1850-1936)’ in White Admiral. Newsletter of the Suffolk Naturalists’ Soc., 65, 2006, pp.23-30 (and later corrections). This amplifies much of what is set out above and provides new information about the very close relationship which Elliott had with Claude Morley. In regard to the Hastings collection Nash notes that the foreign beetles were subsequently passed to the Booth Museum, Brighton in 1937 and are still extant there. The British collections were neglected during the 2nd World War and what was severely damaged by pests at that time was thrown out in the 1950s. The surviving material includes six drawers of beetles of uncertain origin which Nash believes may be what remains of Elliott’s collection. FZS. Elliott presented a complete set of the Genera Insectorum to 1932 to the RESL of which he was a Fellow 1900-1936. (I am grateful to Howard Mendel for sending me a copy of Elliott's obituary). (MD 10/02) |
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| ELLIOTT, G.F.Scott | |||
| ELLIOTT, H.F. | Gave various zoological specimens to the NHM including 14 Coleoptera from Tristan da Cunha (1953.360). (MD 10/02) | ||
| ELLIS, Herbert/Henry Willoughby | see WILLOUGHBY-ELLIS | ||
| ELLIS, John William. | 1857 - 1916 | Lancashire doctor who was a keen botanist and entomologist. He compiled a list of the Coleoptera of the Liverpool area which was first read before the Lancashire and Cheshire Entomological Society in 1880 and published in The Naturalist, subsequently communicated to the Liverpool Biological Society on 13 April 1888, and finally published in book form as The Coleoptera of the Liverpool District (1889). Sharp (1908) said of it: ‘reproduces in succinct form all the local information regarding the order at that time available. Most of its records are due to Dr Ellis's own unfailing energy, but incorporated in the work are the observations of Messers Wilding, Smedley, Willoughby Gardner, and other contemporary students. The rigid circumspection of the area treated of to a fifteen mile radius from Liverpool Town Hall excludes many of the best Lancashire and Cheshire localities and deprives the work of considerable value and interest. The area thus limited was certainly very thoroughly worked ...’ (p.14). Ellis's copy of this list marked up with extra information since publication is in the Liverpool Museum, where there is also a manuscript by Ellis titled List of Coleoptera (Beetles) collected between May 1st 1884 and March 31st 1885 in the district within fifteen miles of the Liverpool Exchange which was compiled from 1502 specimens belonging to 329 species. Ellis's main collection is in the Liverpool Museum, acquired as a gift through the Liverpool Naturalists Field Club, and contains about 12,000 specimens in a 48 drawer cabinet. Unfortunately the specimens are accompanied by little data. Colour codes exist on some but the code book has been lost. 31 drawers are devoted to British specimens and the remainder to foreign beetles (with the exception of two drawers of Lepidoptera). The foreign material is strong on dung beetles in particular and includes material from F.Archer, Rev. J.O'Niel, E. Redman, Lightfoot, C. Melly, J. Chappell, D. Sharp, Buysson, B. Cooke jnr., J. Mertha, Boardman, S. Capper, C. Gregson and L. Mosley. Ellis presented a single beetle (from South Arica) to the NHM in 1891 (1891.9), and gave 183 beetles, mainly from Cheshire but including some specimens from Llangollen, collected in 1888, to the Grosvenor Museum, Chester (1125-1307). Apart from the manuscript material referred to above Liverpool Museum also has two marked up check lists, a manuscript The Journal of a Naturalist, which lists captures from 9 February to 7 May 1875 and 29 September 1886 to 21 July 1903, and a Locality Lists for Coleoptera which covers the period 13 January 1884 to 5 June 1886. There are accounts of Ellis in Lancs.Ches.Nat., February 1912 and August, 1916; Handbook and Guide to the Herbarium Collections in the Public Museums, Liverpool, 1935, 17-18; and Proc.Bot.Soc.Br Isl., 7, 1968, pp.169-172, which I have not seen. Pederson (2002) records material in David Sharp's scarpbook and autograph album in the RESL library. (I am grateful to Ian Wallace for help at Liverpool Museum). (MD 10/02) | |
| ELLISON, L. | Gave 4 beetles and other insects from N. Rhodesia to the NHM in 1933 (1933.408). (MD 10/02) | ||
| ELMSLIE, Peter | Mentioned by E.W.Janson in the Ent.Ann., 1856, p.86 as the captor of a specimen of Otiorhynchus septentrionis Herbst which was in the collection of John Curtis. (MD 10/02) |