Educated at St. Paul's School and as a Scholar and School Exhibitioner at St. John's College, Cambridge. His interest in entomology started with the Lepidoptera when he was aged five, and over the next ten years he built up with his father and brother a very complete collection. While at St Paul's his interests turned to beetles, and specimens collected by him survived in the school collection in 1919. He continued to collect beetles while at Cambridge and after leaving, and he published a number of notes about his more interesting captures, eg. ‘Coleoptera at Ealing, 1911’ in EMM., 48, 1912, pp.12-13; and ‘Bledius fracticornis Pk. near London [Kew]’, ibid., p.13. He described Philonthus donisthorpei as new to science in 1910 (= intermedius Boisduval and Lacordaire) and Longitarsus plantagcoaritimus in 1912. On 3 January 1913 Dolling left England for Central Africa as entomologist to the Sleeping Sickness Survey of the British South Africa Company. He was stationed first at Mwenga and later at Kashitu, and it was in these districts that the greater part of his collections of African Coleoptera were made. His work in connection with the 'Tsetse' fly resulted in the discovery of a parasite, a species of Mutilla, new to science. After nearly three years in Africa he returned to England on leave and married on 23 February 1916 Norah, eldest daughter of Dr and Mrs Holloway of Bedford Park, West London. She returned with him to Africa but died at Kasenpa on 5 July 1916 after a long trek across N.W.Rhodesia. Dollman then moved to Solwezi and gave his attention to breeding Lepidoptera and making careful drawings of the larvae, but he contracted sleeping sickness himself, and knowing that he had but a short time to live, he returned to England via Cape Town in 1918. After working hard to arrange his collection of African Lepidoptera he died in the following year at the age of thirty at his residence, Hove House, Bedford Park. Dollman gave two specimens of Olophrum nicholsoni to the NHM in 1910 (1910.189) and a further six beetles from Rhodesia in 1916 (1916.95). The bulk of his collections: 40,026 specimens from Rhodesia and 7,272 from England, were presented to the same Museum at the time of his death (1919.79), and a further 27 specimens which he had collected in Rhodesia were subsequently presented by Horace Donisthorpe (1921.276). Donisthorpe also gave a series of 15 Rhodesian Staphylinidae collected by Dollman and named by M. Cameron, including paratypes, to the HDO in 1929. Five of Dollman’s collecting diaries covering the period from 1909-1912 are in the NHM where are also housed: a MS notebook: Coleopterous fauna of Ditchling, Sussex and the surrounding area, c.1912; two MS collecting notebooks: Coleopterous fauna of Sussex; three MS notebooks: Coleoptera taken personally, c. 1908-1912; one MS notebook: British Coleoptera data; one notebook: Phytophagous Coleoptera and their foodplants; and other notebooks, drawings, etc. concerning Lepidoptera (listed in Harvey et al (1996), pp.59-60) An interesting note about Dollman's collection appeared in EMM., 55, 1919, pp.135-6: ‘The Rhodesian Lepidoptera and Coleoptera are particularly valuable, and it is the first time that such an extensive series of beetles had been obtained from that part of Africa. Dr Neave, it is true, had previously made large collections of the more conspicuous Coleoptera in the same region, but the smaller forms are not to be found amongst his insects. All that can be said at the present is, that the Longicornia, Carabidae, Staphylinidae, Tenebrionidae, Buprestidae, Phytophaga, and Curculionidae are particularly well represented in the Dollman Collection, and there must be many new species amongst them, particularly in the Staphylinidae ... The Lepidoptera, it may be observed, were all taken or bred by Dollman during his second stay in N.W.Rhodesia, when he was in a very bad state of health, as a result of the Tsetse-fly attacks, the Coleoptera having been captured during the years 1913-1915, on his first sojourn in the country’. Further details are given of the Lepidoptera collections. K.C.Lewis tells me that there are Dollman specimens in his collection. Scirtes dollmani, which he collected in Rhodesia, was named after him by G.C.Champion. There is an obituary notice in EMM., 1919, pp.139-40. (MD 6/02, 12/06)
Dates
10 March 1888 - 3 January 1919