ELLIOTT, Ernest Arthur

Born in Calcutta the third son of William Henry Elliott, Chief Magistrate there (who refused a baronetcy and never dared to tell his wife!). He was educated in Brighton, Koblenz, Reading, and, after a short period of working in the City when his foot was badly crushed, at Repton. Elliott then undertook a training in forestry. This lead to his working in Saxony with Ratzeburg and von Siebold's ‘Merry Black Foresters’ between 1871-1873. At this time he also became an Unteroffizier in the Saxon Iagers and assisted at King John of Saxony's Jubilee. In 1873/74 he returned to India, where as a result of poor health and his eyes ‘giving way’, he failed to get into the Indian Forestry Service and was made an Assistant at Bombay. After only a short time in India Elliott travelled by windjammer round Cape Horn to Australia where he took up cattle ranching on the Paroo River, Queensland, and opal mining. In Australia he survived two fires, major floods, attacks by wild cattle, and another serious leg wound, before returning home in 1884 to live initially in London and later at St. Leonards. He married his cousin Agnes Warner in October 1899. Elliott's obituary in Trans. Suffolk Nat. Soc., 3 Proceedings, 1936, pp.cxvi-cxviii, records that although he showed an early interest in science, noting stag beetles at Sonning in 1860 and carrying out a botanical survey of Derbyshire in 1868, his main strength was as a collector ‘of coins, stamps and all objects of natural history’. In fact his great interest in natural history appears to have been focussed on the Coleoptera, on which he published a number of papers, and from 1920, the Hymenoptera. His work on the latter, which was encouraged by Claude Morley, resulted in the publication of an important monograph on world Stephanidae. Elliott's work on Coleoptera appears to have been concentrated chiefly on the Suffolk fauna and there are various references to him in Morley (1899). In the Introduction to this work Morley wrote: ‘My best thanks to my fidus Achates, Mr Ernest A. Elliott, F.I.Inst., etc., I will but mention. My obligations to him in this and in all matters scientific are too numerous and deep for mere wording’ (p.xiv); and in the First Supplement (1915), he added ‘Mr Ernest A. Elliott, F.Z.S., and I have continued to scour the county in every direction, as is our ancient wont’. Together with Morley he published a list of the Hymenopterous parasites of beetles in Trans.ESL., 1907 and 1908. Elliott had several brothers all of whom appear to have travelled extensively and to have collected Coleoptera which they sent to him. These may account for some of his various notes on foreign species eg. ‘Cionus luctuosus, Bohem at Tenerife’ (EMM., 38, 1902, p.220), and for some of his ten gifts of more than 1,800 beetles to the NHM from S. Africa, Canaries, India, Brazil, etc.(1897.262; 1898.130; 1902.153; 1903.279; 1903.279; 1908.17; 1908.24; 1909.66; 1910.98; 1912.192 and 1919.103). The bulk of his collection passed to the Hastings Museum, however, and there is an interesting note about this in the obituary mentioned above: ‘The great majority of the late Mr Ernest Elliott's collection of British Insects was amassed in Suffolk, where he had almost annually worked on the subject for full forty years, though usually during only odd fortnights. Most series of his excellent beetle cabinet, in particular, showed specimens from our county; and he had repeatedly stated his intention of willing it to its native soil for the use of local students, especially our own Members. He wrote from his St Leonards home to your Hon. Secretary: ‘I am thinking of making a new Will. Would you [Bury or Ipswich museums] like the cabinets of British Beetles, African Butterflies and Foreign Beetles?’ ... But no new Will had been drawn when he died six weeks later. The whole of his British Collections were given by his brother-in-law and executor, Evelyn H.V.Elliott of Braidlea, Ditchling, Sussex, in accordance with a deplorable ‘expressed wish’ of the testator, to the handy Hastings Museum... No more than his Atlantean insects and Tropic beetles came to Suffolk; these are open to Members’ examination at Monks Soham House’. Elliott of Braidlea, Ditchling, Sussex, in accordance with a deplorable 'expressed wish' of the testator, to the handy Hastings Museum... No more than his Atlantean insects and Tropic beetles came to Suffolk; these are open to Members' examination at Monks Soham House'. Since the above was written David Nash has published ‘A Little-Known Important Recorder of Suffolk Insects Ernest Arthur Elliott (1850-1936)’ in White Admiral. Newsletter of the Suffolk Naturalists’ Soc., 65, 2006, pp.23-30 (and later corrections). This amplifies much of what is set out above and provides new information about the very close relationship which Elliott had with Claude Morley. In regard to the Hastings collection Nash notes that the foreign beetles were subsequently passed to the Booth Museum, Brighton in 1937 and are still extant there. The British collections were neglected during the 2nd World War and what was severely damaged by pests at that time was thrown out in the 1950s. The surviving material includes six drawers of beetles of uncertain origin which Nash believes may be what remains of Elliott’s collection.
FZS. Elliott presented a complete set of the Genera Insectorum to 1932 to the RESL of which he was a Fellow 1900-1936. (I am grateful to Howard Mendel for sending me a copy of Elliott's obituary). (MD 10/02)