Charles Mackechnie-Jarvis, when compiling his ‘A History of the British Coleoptera’ in Proc.BENHS., 1976, p.99, was in touch with surviving descendants of the family and notes that Francillon descended from a Huguenot refugee silk weaver Francois Francillon who settled in Spitalfields at the end of the 17th century. He includes a family tree, and further notes that Francillon was married three times and left two daughters but no male descendants. His statement that Francillon practised as a physician, however, was taken from Hagen and is a mistake, Francillon was, in fact, a jeweller. Francillon built up large collections of British and foreign insects which were described by Charles Lyall, the botanist, as ‘the largest in the world’. Chalmers-Hunt, J.M.(1976) records that they were sold in three batches on 27-28 May 1817, 25-26 July 1817 and 11-13 June 1818, the last sale including the foreign insects and spiders. Purchasers included the NHM, J.F.Stephens, J. Curtis, (Stephens,J.F.(1828)p.76), W.Kirby and F.W.Hope. Of the last Smith,A.Z.(1986) p.120, states ‘An undetermined Prionid beetle in Longicorn cabinet 2, dr.36, bears a label in Westwood's handwriting 'This letter F. is in Kirby's handwriting & stands for Francillon at the sale of whose collection it was bought'; this is the first specimen to be definitely identified as out of the Francillon collection, although there should be others’. She also notes that Francillon's Catalogue of ‘Labels for Cabinet of the names of insects described by Fabricius’ is in HDO Library. The sale of Francillon's insects is said by several authors to have been the first auction sale devoted entirely to insects. Hagen,H.(1862) notes that Francillon wrote a ‘Description of a rare Scarabaeus (Sc. macropus) from Potosi in South America’ in 1795 published in Shaw, The Naturalists Miscellany, 1799, with a coloured plate, but I have not seen this. Francis Griffin, ‘The first Entomological Societies, an Early Chapter in Entomological History in England’ in Proc.RESL., series A, 15, September 1940, p.51, notes that Francillon's name appears in the minute book of the Society of Entomologists of London, which lasted from 1780-1782, as one of the members. Interestingly, the RESL purchased a MSS ‘Catalogue of John Francillon's Cabinet of Insects and Other Memorandums. A Copy of Articles belonging to an Aurelain Society. AD 1780’ in 1937 which refers to this Society. Surprisingly Francillon's name does not appear amongst the list of members of Haworth's Aurelian Society, the direct precursor of the Entomological Society, which flourished from 1801-1805. (MD 12/02)
Dates
1744-1818