Born at Besses o'th'Barn, Lancashire, the son of an architect. His father was keen that he should follow the same career but he took up medicine instead, studying at Owen's College, Manchester. After graduating he worked for different periods in Cheadle, Liverpool, and Bolton before moving to Doncaster in 1888/9. Corbett had considerable ability and knowledge in a wide range of fields from music to geology, and is also recorded to have had the power of simultaneous, independent ambidexterity. It is not surprising, therefore, that he quickly made an impact on the literary and scientific life of the town, re-envigorating the local Natural History and Antiquarian Society, of which he and his wife Jesse, the daughter of the entomologist S.J.Capper, were active members, and putting in hand the establishment of the local Museum, of which he became first Curator. Corbett's initial entomological interest appears to have been the Lepidoptera on which he published his first article in 1876. His interest in beetles was apparently aided by Edwin Bayford who wrote in his obituary of Corbett in the Naturalist: 'Soon after he came to Doncaster, a note of mine, which appeared in the Naturalist caused him to seek my acquaintance, and soon he began to study the Coleoptera. In this order he did excellent work, as a cursory glance at the list of Yorkshire species in the Victoria County History will show' (1921, pp.145-147). Many of his captures, which included Diptera and Hymenoptera as well as Lepidoptera and Coleoptera, are recorded in the pages of this magazine. Corbett's collection of Coleoptera, which may amount to some 500-700 specimens, is housed in the Doncaster Museum where it has been amalgamated into the general collection. Apart from the obituary already mentioned, there are others in Ent.News., 32, 1921, p.192; EMM., 57, 1921, pp.66-67; Proc.LSL., 1920-21, pp.46-47; and Proc.ESL., 1921, p.cxxix. (MD 4/02)
Dates
1856 - 5 January 1921