DENVIL, Horace Gaskell

All round naturalist with interests in birds and reptiles - he kept snakes, terrapins and an alligator until it outgrew its accomodation! - entomology and horticulture. Denvil was employed by the National Provincial Bank from 1917 until his retirement forty years later. He worked at first in the city of London but later moved to the Warwick Gardens branch where he had to represent the bank at Earls Court and Olympia exhibitions. He married in 1928 and had a twin son and daughter. Of his natural history interests entomology appears to have been his main concern. A.S. Wheeler recorded in his obituary notice of Denvil in Proc.BENHS., 2 (2),1969: ‘his interests, while centred upon the Coleoptera for the last 35 years or so, included an earlier specialisation in Lepidoptera.’ A collection of Coleoptera made by Denvil comprising some 600 specimens was purchased as part of the C. Norton collection by Bolton Museum in 1977 where it is maintained separately (Hancock and Pettit (1981)) K.C. Lewis tells me that there are also specimens in his collection. FRES; member of the Royal Horticultural Society; the Zoological Society of London; the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds; the BENHS (Wheeler notes that the requirements of his work at the bank sometimes prevented him from attending meetings but that he was otherwise an active participant) and the London Natural History Society. (MD 6/02)