Notes in the Ent.Ann., 1857, 16, and 1860, 5, state that Bouchard 'Collects for entomologists and sells'. His address is given as Marling Pitts Cottage, Sutton, Surrey. Chalmers Hunt (1976),103, records that a collection of British insects belonging to Bouchard was sold by Stevens on 28 March 1865; and perhaps he is the 'Boucard, Natural History dealer' who sold 309 lots of natural history items, including insects, at Stevens on 7 November 1879 (p.113) Smith (1986) records various insects including Coleoptera, purchased from him between 1868 and 1889, now in the HDO.
Brian E. Bouchard informs me that Peter Bouchard was his great, great grandfather ‘of Huguenot descent, was born... in Bethnal Green. When he married in 1838 his occupation was Hearth Rug Maker but he was active as an [amateur?] entomologist by 1845. The family moved to Sutton around 1855/56 so, it is believed, that he could collect specimens on the North Downs and elsewhere, subsequently making his living as a ‘Naturalist’. A dispute with H.J.Harding, President of the Haggerstone Entomological Society, led to a libel case in 1860 which involved Messers Newman and Stainton and the Entomologists Weekly Intelligencer. A small claim to celebrity is based on his discovery of Ophiodes lunaris at Killarney during 1864 vide a Catalogue of the Lepidoptera of Ireland by W.F. De Vismes Kane, 1901. A major interest was microlepidoptera.
The NHM registers reveal various donations and sales to that institution between 1857 and 1866 including specimens sent back to Stevens from the ill-fated trip to South America. A report of his demise may be found in the EMM, 2, 1865.’ [This states: ‘The President regretted to announce....the death of Mr Peter Bouchard, so well known to all British entomologists. Mr Bouchard had proceeded to Santa Martha, in New Granada, in order to collect insects, and had already sent home a valuable collection, when he was seized with fever, which carried him off in four days’]. (MD 10/01, 10/03)