Born at Badminton the son of a clergyman schoolmaster. Studied at several schools before winning a Classics scholarship to Jesus College, Oxford. After hearing a lecture by E.B.Poulton he changed courses to study science in which he graduated in 1889. He had collected butterflies as a boy in the Forest of Dean with his father, and later became interested in Aculeate Hymenoptera. It was these groups which always remained the focus of his British interests. In 1891, after spending a year as a private tutor at Dartmouth, he was chosen by the British Association for the Advancement of Science to investigate the land-fauna of the Hawaiian Islands in co-operation with a Committee of the Royal Society, the combined committee being known as the Sandwich Islands Committee. The Secretary throughout the 22 years of its existence was David Sharp, and it was through him that Perkins added Coleoptera to his entomological interests. Whilst working in the Hawaiian Islands Perkins endured considerable hardship, often living in the mountains and forests in a small tent alone. The research there for which he is best known was on the control of the noxious plant Lantana and on the introduction of controls for the Sugar-Cane leaf hopper. As Director of the Division of Entomology he was responsible for employing Frederick Muir (QV) who worked with him on his entomological projects. In 1912 he was forced to retire because of ill health and he went to live in Devonshire, where he continued to work on his collections for twenty years. Perkins had three sons after marrying Lucy Sharrard in Hawaii, one of whom, John Frederick, worked in the NHM (on Hymenoptera). The bibliography of Perkins’ writings published with his obituary (by Hugh Scott) in Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society, 2, 1956, pp. 215-236, lists 208 titles of which some 20 or so are devoted to Hawaiian beetles, particularly Carabidae, Cerambycidae and Curculionidae. By far his two most important works were the parts of the Fauna Hawaiiensis devoted to Coleoptera: Rhynchophora, Proterhinidae, Heteromera and Cioidae (2, 1900, pp.117-270) and Coleoptera: Anobiidae, Bostrychidae (witrh D.Sharp), supplement to Cerambycidae (with D.Sharp), supplement to Curculionidae and Proterhinidae; Strepsiptera. (3, 1910, pp.581-643 and 645-667). A large collection of letters from 300 correspondents covering the period 1885-1948 is in the NHM together with a collection of notebooks, autobiographical notes, reports, a diary, etc. (Listed in Harvey et al (1996), pp.159-165) and there is correspondence with C.J.Wainwright in the RESL (Pedersen (2002) p.142).FLS (received Gold Medal in 1912). FRES from 1903 (Hon Fellow 1954). FRS 1920. Gilbert (1977) includes a portrait and lists 6 obituaries in addition to that mentioned above. (MD 9/04)
Dates
15 November 1866 – 29 September 1955