Well known Cumberland entomologist who was one of the founder members of the Carlisle Natural History Society and Honorary Curator of the Carlisle City Museum from 1929 until his death.
His interests in entomology were wide ranging and he published many notes on the Cumberland representatives of various different orders. The Coleoptera were his main concern however and the subject of more than sixty notes and articles in various journals from 1894 until just before his death. One of the last ‘Some beetles of the Cumberland Coast’ appeared in the first number of the new periodical Changing Scene in 1957 (pp.47-50). The most important of his publications on beetles was undoubtedly his list of ‘The Coleoptera of Cumberland’ which appeared in Trans. Carlisle Natural History Society, 1, 1909, pp.122-50; 2, 1911, pp.201-56; 3, 1923, pp.70-108; 4, 1928, pp.135-36; 5, 1933, pp.117-125, and was based on the list which he had published in the Victoria County History in 1901. In putting together this list which added more than 1,300 species to the previous total for the county of 500, Day was assisted initially by James Murray and George Routledge, and later by Harry Britten, but undertook the bulk of the work himself. Many of the more interesting captures formed the subject of separate notes and articles in EMM., Naturalist, etc..
Beetles collected by Day may be found in the Bedwell collection at the Norwich Castle Museum, in the general collection at Manchester, in the Hudson Beare collection at the RSM (listed in ‘Additional species sent to the Hudson Beare Collection’ (in 1944)), in the British Coleoptera collection at the Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter (some dated 1909) and in the RHS's collection (information from Andy Salisbury). His main collection, housed in 28 double-sided store boxes, is in the Carlisle Museum (70-1963) where collections made by him of other orders are also preserved. He gave 7 Coleoptera from Cumberland to the NHM in 1925 (1925.136, included four species new to the Museum), 2 in 1927 (1927.440), and 4 more from Cumberland including Dyschirius angustatus in 1933 (1933.344)
There appear to be no obituary notices of Day in the entomological press. I have a note of a piece in Cumberland News, 13 September 1963, p.14, which I have not seen. His son was recorded to be living in Grange-over-Sands, Cumbria, in March 1979. FRES from 1903. (MD 3/03)