DALTRY, Harold William

Son of the Rev. Thomas William Daltry (1832-1904) of Madeley Vicarage, Newcastle, Staffordshire. Educated at Marlborough College. Joined the staff of the London and North Western Railway Works at Crewe as a locomotive designer and tester. After retiring he moved to Rugby where he died. Daltry's interest in entomology began with Lepidoptera and Hymenoptera and is recorded to have been first stimulated when he was at Marlborough by Edward Meyrick, although his father, who was also an entomologist, must presumably have been an influence too. In 1905 he joined the North Staffordshire Field Club of which his father had earlier been President, and he remained a member until his death, serving at one time as Chairman of the Entomology Section. During this time he interested himself in most orders with the exception of the Diptera, and he published many notes in Transactions of the Club, Ent. and EMM. He was also a keen botanist specialising in the brambles in particular of which Rubus daltrii was named after him. According to his friend Dr M.W.R. de V. Graham, who wrote his obituary in Ent., 95, 1962, pp.255-56, Daltry 'early became a very competent Coleopterist', although most of his publications were on Hemiptera, Lepidoptera and Hymenoptera. His first notes on beetles seem to have been 'Staphylinus globulifer Forc. and allied species in Britain', EMM., 67, 1931, p.41, and ‘Staphylinus aeneocephalus De Geer and S. cupreus Rossi in Britain’, ibid., p.142. Further articles then appeared in this periodical every few years until ‘Philonthus dimidiatipennis Erichson in Britain’ 94, 1958, p.66. In ‘Occurrence of Odontoscelis dorsalis Fab. in E. Kent’, ibid., 71, 1935, pp.42-43, he refers to E.C.Bedwell as his friend, and I have seen specimens collected by Daltry in the Bedwell collection in the Castle Museum, Norwich. In ‘Cartodere filum Aube in Cheshire’, ibid., 84, 1948, p.9, he mentions W.D.Graddon and H. Britten as friends, and in ‘Cicindela germanica L. in Dorset’, ibid., 85, 1949, p.283 he refers to Philip Harwood as a friend too. Apart from the Norwich specimens referred to above I have also seen material collected by Daltry in the general collection and in Colin Johnson's collection of British weevils at Manchester. His main collection of British insects of all orders and his notebooks were given to Dr M.W.R. de V. Graham and placed on loan in HDO before being donated to the Herbert Art Gallery and Museum, Coventry in 1983 (Smith (1986) p.112).The Coventry collection consists of 18,977 British Coleoptera (information from Steve Lane). Among the large number of gifts of insects which he made to the NHM were several of Coleoptera: 1933.38 (2 specimens); 1935.26 (5 weevils) and 1935.81 (4 specimens). FRES from 1929. Member AES. Apart from the obituary referred to above there is a short note in Proc.FRESL., C, 27, 1962-63, p.50. (MD 5/02)