DINNAGE, Harry

Born in Horsham and lived there for the greater part of his life. A cabinet maker by profession, he served in the Boer War and in the Navy during the First World War, and was also employed as an estate gardener. In his obituary of Dinnage in EMM., 91, 1955, p.292, A.A.Allen records that his first interest in entomology was the Lepidoptera but that this gave way to the Coleoptera around 1925 under the influence of his friend Dr Padwick who lived in Horsham and knew Norman Joy. Allen, who exchanged specimens with Dinnage, further records that 'He amassed a considerable representative collection of British beetles, largely local captures for he had few chances to collect much outside his own area... near the end of his life he was engaged in compiling a list of his captures in the Horsham district, which he looked forward to seeing in print... His outstanding discovery, by which British Coleopterists will remember him, was that of the Australian fern-weevil Syagrionus intrudens Wat. breeding at large in private grounds near Horsham.’ Dinnage published six notes in the EMM. after 1945, when he lived at Guildford, detailing his captures in Surrey and Sussex. A further note (91, 1955, p.ii) written shortly before his death, records his intention to sell his Coleoptera books including a small paper copy of Fowler. His collections were housed in cabinets of his own making. K.C.Lewis there are Dinnage specimens in his collection. FRES from 1929; member of the British Empire Naturalist's Association (mid-southern branch. He gave slide lectures and acted as referee in Coleoptera); and phenological observer for the Royal Meterological Society. There is another obituary in Proc.RESL, 20, 1955-56 (C), pp. 74-75. (MD 6/02, 12/06)