Born in Golden Square, London the eldest son of Edward Rye, a solicitor of Norfolk descent. Educated at King’s College, London and, although not wanting to qualify for the law, joined his father’s office as a clerk. His obituary in EMM, 21, 1885, 238-240, mentions that it was no secret that he wanted to join the staff of the Zoological Department at the British Museum but no vacancy materialised. Later he became managing clerk to a barrister. His favourite sport was rowing which he continued until past the age of 50 winning many prizes. On 30 July 1881 he was temporarily crippled when his boat was sandwiched between a barge and a steamer. After retiring from the legal profession in 1875 he became Librarian to the Royal Geographical Society and worked, too, for the Zoological Record, the Field newspaper, and the EMM of which he was one of the founding editors. He died of small pox which it was believed he had contracted from association with the riverside community.
Rye published some 240 papers on British beetles of which 18 appeared in the first volume of the EMM including a 36 page revision of Stenus. Of particular importance were the annual compilations of additions and corrections to the British list which appeared in the Ent. Ann. from 1863 until the magazine ceased in 1874. Shortly before this he published a ‘List of the species of Coleoptera recorded as new to Britain in the Entomologist’s Annuals 1855-72...’ (Ent.Ann.,1872, 125-201) which included some 1,100 species. Between 1864 and 1876 he named 35 new species, of which 18 still survive, and re-named 8 others. His single book, British Beetles, An introduction to the study of our indigenous Coleoptera was published by Lovell Reeve in 1866, (and updated by W.W.Fowler and republished in 1890).
MacKechnie-Jarvis (1976) pointed out that Rye married into the Waterhouse family of well-known Coleopterists who were themselves related to the Griesbachs, and he includes a family tree. E.G.Hancock, Rye’s Beetles, a catalogue of E.C.Rye’s type specimens in the Bolton Museum, 1985, includes another tree giving further information, and also lists 30 type species, and a further 3 species named after Rye: Apion ryei Blackburn 1874, Meligethes ryei Wollaston 1871 and Scopaeus ryei Wollaston 1872. Rye is mentioned in the Gorham diary at Birmingham Museum; the Janson diary at Cambridge eg. June 1868, August 1869; and in Charles Waterhouse’s Localities list (1861) at RSM.
Towards the end of his life Rye’s editorial and other duties became so onerous that he was forced to give up beetles and to sell his collection to Philip Mason, and it is now housed at Bolton as part of the Mason collection. Hancock (1985) gives a detailed account of the acquisition which included a 40 drawer cabinet, 19 loose drawers, and 2 storeboxes of beetles and an empty 24 drawer cabinet, (the empty cabinet was subsequently used to house the boxed and loose drawer specimens) and he estimated that the number of beetles amounted to between one quarter and one third of Mason’s total collection of 70,000 specimens. A marked up copy of a Catalogue of British Coleoptera inscribed ‘HSG from ECR’ is in the Birmingham Museum (85-32). Other Ms notes are included in an annotated copy of Sharp’s Catalogue of British Coleoptera at Bolton which Rye re-titled Catalogue of the Collection of British Coleoptera of E.C.Rye, March 25, 1880. On this last see Hancock (1985), 26-27, where a page is reproduced. There are also specimens collected by Rye in the Britten collection at Manchester; in the collection of W.C Hey at York (Simms, 1968) and in my collection, acquired as part of the Marlborough College collection to which it is known that Rye donated many single examples of different species. Unfortunately those in my collection include no locality information which is in line with Fowler’s statement that Rye never attached data to his specimens. The 7 type specimens not at Bolton are in the NHM (Power, Champion and Sharp collections).
Gilbert (1977) lists 10 obituary and other notices and Hancock (1985) includes two portraits. (MD 11/04, 12/21))