GODMAN, Frederick DuCane

Mainly a Lepidopterist but he is included here as one of the central figures in Victorian entomology and as the owner of extensive Coleoptera collections amassed during his work on the Biologia Centrali-Americanum. Godman was born at Park Hatch, Surrey, the third son of Joseph Godman. Educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge where he met the natural historian Osbert Salvin with whom he was to remain on close terms until Salvin's death in 1898. It was with Salvin that he undertook many collecting trips and compiled the monumental Biologia Centrali-Americanum which extended to 52 volumes including complete coverage of the Coleopterous fauna as then known. (The volume on Staphylinidae and water beetles alone runs to 824 quarto pages plus numerous coloured plates, which gives an indication of the magnitude of the undertaking.) Godman was a man of many parts and established a reputation as a field naturalist, ornithologist and sportsman as well as an entomologist. In the Introductory volume to the Biologia he records how his interest in natural history and particularly entomology came to be dominant. Salvin and he had collected together at Cambridge. Salvin developed an interest in foreign material and had mounted two expeditions to Central America before August 1861 when he persuaded Godman to join him on a third trip to British Honduras and Guatemala. The expedition went well (though not all their activities would be looked upon favourably today particularly the practice of employing natives to cut down trees 'which shaded the objects we wished to photograph'!) and further cemented their friendship so that they determined to establish a joint Central American 'museum' of natural history in London to include all their collections. This was set up initially at 23 The Boltons, South Kensington, where Salvin had moved after his marriage in 1865. It was from this time Godman noted 'that we realy did serious work together...[and] from thence onwards we spent the greater part of the week in London arranging our collections'. Later, he said of his friendship with Salvin: 'we were more intimately connected than most brothers'. After Salvin was appointed Curator of Birds at Cambridge in 1873 Godman moved the collections to Tenterden Street, Hanover Square and, in 1878, to 10 Chandos Street, Cavendish Square. Both men appear to have been wealthy and were able to employ other entomologists to collect for them and to work on the collections as part of the process of compiling the Biologia. Amongst the Coleopterists was G.C.Champion, who acted as Godman's Secretary, and who subsequently wrote that he owed his career as an entomologist 'entirely to the encouragement, liberality, and friendship of Godman with whom [I]... remained in close association... for forty years' (EMM., 55, 1919, p.90). By the time the collections were presented to the NHM the Coleoptera alone amounted to 85,920 specimens excluding 22,793 Curculionidae and 9474 Staphylinidae. Included was the Janson collection of Elateridae (including that of Candeze) which Godman had acquired for the Central American species. The NHM also holds some of the pen-and-ink and water-colour drawings for the Biologia including 500 of beetles by Baron Max Schlereth for vols II (1887-1890) and IV (1884-1910) (listed in Harvet et al. (1996) pp.87-88. There also 6650 insects including beetles, being duplicates of the Biologia material in the HDO (Smith (1986) pp.121-22) It is clear that not all the collections were devoted to Central America for in 1865 Godman made a trip to the Azores taking with him the Coleopterist J.A.Brewer. This subsequently resulted in a detailed account of the Flora and Fauna published in 1870 which included 212 Coleoptera. These were named by G.R.Crotch and also passed into the collections of the NHM. After a further trip to Central America when he spent most of his time in Mexico, Godman travelled to India in 1886 in company with the Lepidopterist H.J.Elwes, and later to Switzerland. Neither of these trips appears to have involved Coleoptera. Publication of the Biologia, which included 38 volumes on Insecta, commenced in 1879 and was completed in 1915, Godman undertaking the work of assembling the material himself after Salvin's death. Salvin and Godman wrote the volumes on birds and Lepidoptera, Rhopalacera, and Champion, Bates, Baly, Sharp and other Coleopterists the volumes on beetles. Amongst the illustrators was Robert H.F.Rippon, himself a Coleopterist, and whose life as a collector and publisher appears to have been modelled to some extent on that of Godman. There is correspondence in the RESL (Pedersen (2002) pp.60,88) which includes ‘lists of specimens’, a wedding present, and letters from Dame Alice Godman, his wife. FRES from 1865, President 1891-92. FLS. He was also a Fellow of many other Societies and a Trustee of the British Museum. Gilbert (1977) gives a full list of obituaries and other notices. FRES from 1865, President 1891-92. FLS. He was also a Fellow of many other Societies and a Trustee of the British Museum. Gilbert (1977) gives a full list of obituaries and other notices. (MD 1/03)