Born in Market Bosworth and studied classics at Clare College, Cambridge but became a doctor in which profession he ‘was for about forty years one of the best known and most successful medical tutors in London, especially in connection with the examinations for the Indian and Army medical departments’ (EMM, 23, 1886, 45). In 1881 he was disabled by a stroke and went to live in Bedford where he died and is buried.
Power’s interest in Coleoptera appears to have begun whilst he was at Cambridge. He was elected a Member of the ESL on 2 June 1834 and W.W.Fowler in the obituary quoted above, noted that the earliest entry in his journal was Burwell Fen, June 11th, 1835. But Fowler goes on to note ‘Apparently, however, he did not begin to collect regularly until 1853, from which year up to 1880 he was one of the most energetic and successful British collectors. He found a large number of species new to the British list, and many species that had been considered extremely rare he discovered in numbers; he seemed to have an instinctive faculty for finding localities, and an intuitive insight into the habits of species... His perseverance was only equalled by his generosity; he was always ready to give away specimens of even his rarest captures, and friends that he knew well were always at liberty to select where they liked from his abundantly filled series of insects, which he seemed to have taken and set for their especial benefit’.
A.H. Palmer’s MS account of John Linnell jnr.(QV) makes reference to an entry in Linnell’s journal recording a visit to Reigate ‘of the veteran Dr Power... from whom he afterwards received liberal help and great encouragement.’ Power’s visits resulted in his publication of ‘Fifteen species of Coleoptera new for the Reigate District’ in Proc.Holmesdale nat. hist. Club, 1865-66, 6,8 and 1 fig. Power’s other publications on Coleoptera were relatively modest amounting to some twenty eight papers. The first, ‘Notes on Haliplus’ appeared in Zool., 14, 1856, 5174-78, and the last, ‘A list of the new species of Coleoptera which have been added to the British fauna during the years 1872-1877...’ in Ent.,11, 1878, 62-69. Lott (2009), 8, refers to visits he made to Charnwood Forest in August 1855 and July 1860 which resulted in 53 records. Power also published one or two notes on other groups including the Hemiptera in which he took a special interest.
He is mentioned in the Gorham diary at Birmingham eg 17 February 1872 ‘Cdlay Hill, Enfield, Sir H. Meuxes with Power.’ He is also mentioned in the Janson diary at Cambridge eg. 17 February 1876. His collection is in the NHM and is accompanied by two MS notebooks Register of the Power’s Collection 1848-1879. Beetles collected by him are also in the Mason and Pelerin collections at Bolton, in the collection of K.C.Lewis, labelled Power Coll., and Simms (1968) records material in the W.C.Hey collection at York.
Gilbert (1966) lists 7 other obituaries and notices including one (by J.W. Dunning) in Ent., 19, 1886, 193-200, which includes a bibliography and portrait. (MD 9/04, 11/04, 12/21)