E.B.Britten writing in Ent.mon.Mag., 87, 1951, 64, noticed that 'in the space of twenty-years beginning at the age of 55 Mr Andrewes achieved a world reputation as an authority on oriental Carabidae. He trained originally in forestry at Nancy and then moved to the Indian Forestry Service in 1885. After a few years, however, he was forced to give this up because of eye trouble and he returned to England to start in business. By this time his interest in beetles was beginning to assert itself and at the suggestion of Sir Guy Marshall he retired early in order to specialise in Carabidae at the NHM. He continued to work in the entomology section there until after the war when his sight finally failed altogether.
Andrewes published his first article: ‘Papers on Oriental Carabidae’ in Ann.Mag.nat.Hist., 1919, by which time he had clearly already done a considerable amount of work in compiling a catalogue of oriental carabids. This was followed by more than forty further 'Papers' and 'Notes' in this magazine, and by some seventy or so other articles there and elsewhere. These included catalogues of the Carabidae of the Philippines (1926), Ceylon (1928) and India (1930), the last running to 389 pages; revisions of the oriental species of several genera including Tachys (1925); many papers on Sumatran, Javanese, Samoan and other oriental faunas including that of India; and keys to many of the Indian genera. He also published two volumes in the FBI series on Carabinae (1929) and Harpalinae (1935), and was responsible for the volume on Carabidae in The Generic Names of British Insects series published by the RESL (l939). In preparing the last he designated, selected and fixed the types of many of our genera.
Andrewes presented his extensive collections to the NHM in batches from 1923. Riley (1964) noticing that 38,434 specimens were given before the war and a further 35,000 specimens afterwards. Andrewes also gave to the Museum a collection of Coleoptera formed by H. Stevens in Sikkim between 1916 and 1918 amounting to 1,395 specimens. Further collections of Coleoptera including the syntypes of many new species (1915-22) and a collection from India, Burma, New Guinea, Natal, Tennessee, including some syntypes of Jacoby, Horn, and Regimbaurt (1900) (formed with F.W.Andrewes), together with books and bound separata (1945-46) is in the HDO (Smith, 1986). His main library, however, was presented to the RES.
As far as MS material is concerned Harvey et. al. (1996) record the existence of 36 cloth files and 2 notebooks consisting of notes on Carabid collections and identifications from private and institutional collections that Andrewes had seen throughout the world, and of a four-volume loose-leaf catalogue [Catalogue of Oriental Carabidae] listing collecting localities of material he had seen, in the NHM. They also note the existence of correspondence in the Janson archive. And Smith (1986) records correspondence with Poulton and Notes on Types in the Chevrolat Collection, on Putzey’s Types of Clivina (Hope Collection), and on Types of eastern Carabidae (Hope Collection) at Oxford.
Several beetles were named after Andrewes including Agonotrechus andrewesi and Neoblemus andrewesi by Jeannel,1923 and a variety of Calosoma imbricatum Klug. by Breuning, 1928. The genus Andrewesa, named after him by Neotolitzky in 1931, was subsequently synonymised with Bembidium by Andrewes himself.
FRES 1910 until death; Council 1920-22. In 1920 he gave £21 towards the purchase of 41 Queen's Gate. (MD 7.01, 1/22)