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 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| FRISBY, G.E. | There are specimens bearing this name in the F.T.Grant collection in the HDO (information from James Hogan). (MD 10/03) | ||
| FROGGATT, J.L. | Gave 12 Coleoptera which he had collected in the Soloman Islands and N. Guinea to the NHM in 1934 (1934.644) and a further 53 specimens three years later (1937.392). (MD 12/02) | ||
| FROST, C.A. | Gave 21 Coleoptera including 6 paratypes from N. America to the NHM in 1925 (1925.144). (MD 12/02) | ||
| FROST, G.J. | Listed by Cowley,J.(1947) as interested in Lepidoptera, Coleoptera and Diptera. His address is given as 17 Crofton Road, Ipswich. Is this perhaps the same Frost who published articles on insects collected in Ipswich in Trans. City Lond. nat. hist. Soc., 1896, pp.18-20. (MD 12/02) | ||
| FROST, J. | Published ‘Water Beetles and Light reflected by Glass’ in Ent., 16, 1883, p.286. (MD 12/02) | ||
| FRY, Alexander | 10 September 1821 - 26 February 1905 | Born at Pencraig, Herefordshire. He entered his father's mercantile business in Rio de Janeiro where he lived from 1838 until moving back to this country in 1854. During this period he made only one return visit to England, in 1843, when he was married. Fry was an enthusiastic Coleopterist specialising in Cerambycidae and Curculionidae in particular. He not only did a considerable amount of collecting himself but also added to his collections through purchases. Thus, he acquired Parry's collection of Cerambycids, large numbers of specimens collected by Doherty, Wallace and others, and most importantly, Whitehead's specimens from Kinabalu including all the types described by H.W.Bates. After his death his collection, amounting to some 200,000 specimens, passed to the NHM. An earlier donation, of 315 beetles from Brasil, was made in 1857 (1857.19; his address was given as West Green Lodge, Tottenham), and another 200 specimens were acquired by Liverpool Museum, via Cheltenham College, before 1880. Fry published only one note of which I am aware, an Observation on Fireflies, written with W.T.Evans, in Trans.ESL., (3)2, Proc, 1865, pp.101-102. He did not become involved in descriptive work but made his collections, housed in his home at Norwood, freely available to others, so that they are frequently mentioned in monographs, etc. (eg. Fowler and Arrow's volumes in the FBI series). There are obituaries in EMM., 41, 1905, p.119 and Trans.ESL., C, 1905, p.lxxxvi. (MD 12/02) | |
| FRYER, Charles | Listed in the Ent.Ann., 1860, p.15, as interested in British Lepidoptera and Coleoptera. His address is given as 83 Rumford St., Chorlton-on-Medlock, Manchester. (MD 12/02) | ||
| FRYER, Herbert Fortescue | 1854-1930 | Born at the Manor House, Chatteris, Cambridgeshire. A man of wide-ranging accomplishments he was a good field naturalist, a talented musician, an athelete, and much involved in public work in the Isle of Ely both as a magistrate and as a County Councillor. Fryer's parents and his uncle, the botanist Daniel Fryer, were all collectors of butterflies, and it is not, therefore, surprising that his initial entomological interests were with the Lepidoptera, his first recorded capture being made in 1868. His serious interest in Coleoptera, and also to some extent in Hemiptera-Heteroptera and Homoptera, appears not to have begun until 1905 and may have been stimulated by his son J.C.F.Fryer. Certainly this is the date from which captures are recorded in the well known articles on ‘Coleoptera in Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire’ which they wrote jointly in EMM., 49, 1913, pp.246-250, 266-268; 50, 1914, 10-13, 85-88, 109-111, although there is also mention of some species having been taken between 1879 and 1882, and Herbert did write two notes on Coleoptera at this time in the Ent.: ‘Phaedon betulae, the Blue Beetle’, 14, 1881, pp.44-45, and ‘Atomaria linearis a Mangold enemy’, 15, 1882, p.138. Not just this list but almost all the other articles which he wrote on the Coleoptera at this time were published jointly with his son. These included the addition of a number of species to the British list eg. Bledius denticollis, taken at Nethy Bridge before David Sharp brought forward the insect as British on the basis of his capture at Inverness (EMM., 45, 1909, p.6); Anthicus bifasciatus from old manure heaps at Chatteris; (ibid.,50, 1914, pp.84-85); Sitona gemellatus also from the Chatteris area (ibid., 59, 1923, pp.80-81); Lygus rubicundus and Grypotes pinetellus. Some of these insects were given at the time to the NHM by J.C.F. and it is tempting to surmise that he should really be credited with their capture, however, in his obituary of his father in EMM., 66, 1930, p.114, J.C.F. specifically credits him. FES 1876-1921. (MD 12/02) | |
| FRYER, J.C.F. | Son of Herbert Fortescue Fryer and did much of his early entomological work with his father as is clear from their many joint publications (see above). Fryer was a botanist by profession becoming Director of the Plant Pathological Laboratory of the Ministry of Agriculture. He did publish a number of notes on Coleoptera (and other orders) in his own right including Ceuthorhynchidius pulvinatus Gyll in EMM., 65, 1929, pp.64-65; ‘Brachypterolus vestitus, Kies in Britain’ ibid.., pp.101-102; ‘A variety of Philonthus laminatus Creutz’, ibid., 68, 1932, pp.187-188 (found in his father's collection which he presumably inherited); ‘The Colorado Beetle’, ibid., 70, 1934, pp.116-117, and ‘Time of flight of beetles of the genus Agriotes’, ibid., 77, 1941, p.280. There is a general collection of insects apparently made by Fryer in Ceylon in the Cambridge Museum dated 28 November 1912; and he gave two gifts of insects to the NHM (1914.112 and 1916.231) which included some of the specimens described by his father and himself as new to Britain. FES. (MD 12/02) | ||
| FRYER, Rowland J. | Published ‘Rhizotragus solstitialis at Hackness’ in Naturalist, 1897, p.370. (MD 12/02) |