JENYNS, Leonard

A Reverend, who is also known under the name of Leonard Blomefield, a pseudonym which he adopted in later life. He was born in London the son of the Rev. G.L.Jenyns, a Canon of Ely, and educated at Eton and St. John's College, Cambridge, before being ordained at the age of 29 to the curacy of Swaffham Bulbeck in Cambridgeshire, where he was Vicar for thirty years. On Leaving Swaffham he moved firstly the Isle of Wight and subsequently to Bath, where he died. Jenyns is known mainly through the autobiographical memoir which he published privately in 1887 titled Chapters in my Life (second edition in 1889). He was a well known field naturalist, who was offered and declined the post of Naturalist on board the Beagle subsequently accepted by Darwin, and who has been called the 'Father' of the Linnean Society, which he joined in 1822. In view of his great age at the time of his death and the fact that he retained all his faculties, it was remarked that he might also have been given the same title as regards the Zoological Society, which he joined in 1826, and the Entomological Society which he joined in 1833. He was also the founder of the Bath Natural History Field Club in 1855 and he took an active interest in the Bath Literary and Scientific Institution to which he presented his library and herbarium. Jenyns was also on the role of the Swaffham Prior Natural History Society founded by G.B.Jermyn (see below) and took part in their expeditions (see 'A History of the British Coleoptera' by C. MacKechnie Jarvis in Proc.BENHS., 1976, pp.98 - 101). Jenyns published widely on various natural history subjects, his best known work being his Manual of British Vertebrate Animals, 1836. Not much appears to be known about his specific interest in Coleoptera but it exhibits itself both early and late in his life suggesting that it may have been on-going. He is mentioned frequently by Stephens (1828) who describes him as 'my friend'. B. Wager's typescript Catalogue of the History and Origins of the Insect Collections, in the Zoological Museum at Cambridge, makes clear that collections by Jenyns formed a large part of the Cambridge Philosophical Society's collections, begun in 1819, which were made over to the Museum in 1865, the year before its amalgamation, and that they also included collections made by Prof. Henslow. A manuscript catalogue of the Society's collection by Jenyns is in the archive cabinet. Jenyns' articles included 'Notice of a rare capture followed by remarks on variation of structure and instincts in animals', which refers to Acanthocinus aedilis, in Proc. Bath nat. hist. Field Club, 5, 1885, pp.172-194, and 'Notice of a second capture of the rare longicorn, taken near Bath in September, 1883', ibid, pp.264-267, in which he corrects the name to Monochamus dentator. Gilbert (1977) lists five obituaries the most comprehensive of which are: by J.Earle in Hist. Berwicksh. Nat. Club, 1893, pp.347-358, and by H.H.Winwood in Proc.Bath nat.Hist.antiq.Fld Club, 8, 1894, pp.35-55 (with portrait). (MD 8/03)