Biographical dictionary | UK Beetle Recording

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

CAIGER, Hugh

1895 - 1970.

Name	Dates	Biography
CAIGER, Hugh	1895 - 1970.	A clergyman who lived at Birling Vicarage, near Maidstone until 1 November 1960 when he moved to 2(3?)54 Chester Road, Woodford, Stockport, Cheshire. Listed as a member of the Amateur Entomologists Society in 1962 with a general interest in 'entomology' but he specialised in aquatic groups in particular. His publications included 'Aquatic Coleoptera in Cheshire' in EMM, 104, 1968, 232 (records captures from 1961 –1968) and 'Gyrinus bicolor and G. colymbus in Cheshire', ibid, 105, 1969, 268. There are four boxes of aquatic Coleoptera (and one of Hemiptera) amounting to about 1000 specimens collected by him in c.1960, and some related mss, including six diaries (starting 14 April 1959 and ending in 1969), and a notebook describing and mapping many of his collecting sites, in the Manchester Museum. The diaries were borrowed by Garth Foster, who wrote in Latissimus, 21 September 2006, 43-44,that they ‘provide a charming insight into the care with which this vicar, far from retired, in the sense that he often took church services for others until soon before he died ... went about ‘fisging’ for beetles. He was always anxious to prospect a site andn to gain permission, often generating many a pleasant conversation in the process. He was also very keen on Eccles and Chorley cakes, and local tea-rooms, and his accounts include significant commentaries on the weather... I have extracted 1,034 records by him for Cheshire, Staffordshire and Derbyshire, but I have drawn a veil over his first efforts in the West Malling area... He was clearly troubled by the Hydroporus palustris complex... Jack Balfour-Browne amongst others, helped with identifications, and it was Jack who obliged him to publish his more interesting finds...’ (MD 1/O2, 11/09)

A clergyman who lived at Birling Vicarage, near Maidstone until 1 November 1960 when he moved to 2(3?)54 Chester Road, Woodford, Stockport, Cheshire. Listed as a member of the Amateur Entomologists Society in 1962 with a general interest in 'entomology' but he specialised in aquatic groups in particular. His publications included 'Aquatic Coleoptera in Cheshire' in EMM, 104, 1968, 232 (records captures from 1961 –1968) and 'Gyrinus bicolor and G. colymbus in Cheshire', ibid, 105, 1969, 268.

There are four boxes of aquatic Coleoptera (and one of Hemiptera) amounting to about 1000 specimens collected by him in c.1960, and some related mss, including six diaries (starting 14 April 1959 and ending in 1969), and a notebook describing and mapping many of his collecting sites, in the Manchester Museum. The diaries were borrowed by Garth Foster, who wrote in Latissimus, 21 September 2006, 43-44,that they ‘provide a charming insight into the care with which this vicar, far from retired, in the sense that he often took church services for others until soon before he died ... went about ‘fisging’ for beetles. He was always anxious to prospect a site andn to gain permission, often generating many a pleasant conversation in the process. He was also very keen on Eccles and Chorley cakes, and local tea-rooms, and his accounts include significant commentaries on the weather... I have extracted 1,034 records by him for Cheshire, Staffordshire and Derbyshire, but I have drawn a veil over his first efforts in the West Malling area... He was clearly troubled by the Hydroporus palustris complex... Jack Balfour-Browne amongst others, helped with identifications, and it was Jack who obliged him to publish his more interesting finds...’ (MD 1/O2, 11/09)