LLOYD, Robert Wylie

Son of John Lloyd, a bleacher at Horwich, Lancashire. His mother was a Wylie of Glasgow. After his parents separated he was brought up by his mother in Clapham. His health was poor and he had little formal education but this did not prevent him becoming a very successful and wealthy businessman particularly through the publishing firm of Nathaniel Lloyd and Co. He also achieved fame as a mountaineer after being introduced to the Alps in 1896 by G.C.Champion, his friend of some forty years. After the amputation of a leg in 1937 he continued to assist climbers through the Alpine Club, and was involved in the first successful ascent of Mount Everest In a note Lloyd appended to J.J.Walker’s obituary of Champion (who also lived in Clapham) in EMM, 63, 1927, pp.202-203, he stated that his times in the Alps were the happiest of his life. After the loss of his leg Lloyd became more involved in entomology and particularly Coleoptera ‘as beetles are no more active than I am now’. Harry Champion described his field trips as follows: ‘Driving by car to promising collecting spots, he would get his chauffeur to help him by bringing material to be spread for examination on a folding table brought for that purpose. Many of his friends who have visited him formerly at Treago Castle and latterly at Bampton Grange, will long carry a memory of this characteristic in the field, and his continued assiduity at mounting and setting his captures in his study at home. At Bampton his favourite collecting ground was Wychwood Forest...’. Another coleopterist who recorded a collecting trip with Lloyd was Raymond Uhthoff-Kaufmann. In ERJV, 96, 1984, he wrote ‘That year, too, [1949] R.W.Lloyd and I spent a day collecting in Delamere Forest, Cheshire, hunting particularly for Saperda scalaris L., of which we found many larvae, pupae and a dead imago. I remember admiring Mr Lloyd’s mobility and agility in clambering over gates and fencing, despite his artificial limb... on our drive to Delamere he handed me a small pocket store box “I brought this present for you” he said. “Walter, my chauffeur, beat a number off pine [sic] branches for me in Moccas Park ... a year or so ago”...It contained a neatly ticketed Pyrridium sanguineum L.’. In London Lloyd lived in Albany, Piccadilly. In 1904, following the death of Robert McLachlan, Lloyd acquired the EMM. In a note appended to the obituary of J.J.Walker in 75, 1939, p.70, he wrote ‘I took over the editorial management and ownership... in association first with the late G.C.Champion as chief literary editor until his death, and then for the last ten years with Commander J.J.Walker, who had always been in touch with his brother-in-law, G.C.Champion – two of my oldest friends. During all these years we worked together in the greatest harmony with a single eye to the prestige and success of the magazine.’ When a change of publisher had become necessary in 1924 his firm took over. Lloyd’s own contributions to the magazine commenced with ‘Prionus corarius and Sirex gigas in Herefordshire’ (74, 1938, p.232) and were principally confined to short notes and longer reviews of books and obituary notices, although a longer piece did confirm the presence of Syagrius intrudens here (80, 1944, p.4). Lloyd’s collections including Lepidoptera and Diptera as well as Coleoptera were bequeathed to the Manchester Museum, the beetles occupying 80 drawers. They include Staphylinidae given to him by Tottenham and other specimens from J.J.Walker, K.G.Blair, T.Edmonds, Eustace, Blatch and others, and have now been amalgamated into the general collection. The Kauffmann collection of Cerambycids in the Museum also includes specimens taken by Lloyd, as does the general collection at Doncaster Museum; the Dyson Perrins Collection at Birmingham Museum; the British collection at Oldham Museum; and he gave many small donations from British and European localities to the HDO (1901-55). Manchester gave some duplicates to Glasgow. Lloyd also left to Manchester his extensive library and provided funding for the purchase of the collection of Cassidinae formed by Spaeth of Vienna. The manuscript material in the Museum related to him includes: Coleoptera notes of collections no1 July 88 – no 3000 27 March 94; a small notebook stamped Bibliotheca H. Donisthorpe and with a tree, pps 1-87, with index of species and listing localities for some species.; marked up copy of Hudson Beare’s 1930 list; small loose leaf book listing contents of drawer 23; volume inscribed Horace Donisthorpe, 332 Great West Rd., Heston, Middx... pp.1-119 listing names and addresses of people to whom he sent reprints from 1932. Lloyd’s generosity was well known and included the fitting out of the RESL’s meeting room in 41 Queen’s Gate and the gift to the library of the Hubner and Gayer manuscripts. Hubner’s original drawings for the Sammlung Europaischer Schmetterlinge were given to the NHM where there is also correspondence dated 1932 with J.V.Pearman. With S.A.Neave he published Nomenclator Zoologicus at a very reduced price so that it would be more widely accessible, and made available supplementary volumes every ten years.FRES from 1885, Hon.FRES from 1944, Council five terms from 1900, Vice President four times. Member of the Entomological Club from 1935 and subsequently a Trustee. Apart from the notices already mentioned there is an obituary in The Times, 30 April 1958; ProcRESL 23,C,1958-59, pp.71-72 and J.Soc.Brit.Ent., 2, 1959, p.59. (MD 11/03)