Sometimes confused with J.W.Ellis. Ellis was born in Woodville, Burton-upon-Trent. He attended Nuneaton School and Coppers Hill College, and worked as an electrician, founding Ellis and Ward Ltd. of Portugal Street, London. In 1890 he joined the Birmingham Nat Hist and Phil Soc. He served as its Vice-President in 1907, 1910-1939 and as President in 1908 . He was known as a geologist and fossil collector as well as an entomologist an interest he acquired at school. Through his role at the society (latterly merging with Birmingham Ent Soc) he was instrumental in the founding of a natural history collection at Birmingham Museum, originally under the City Art Gallery.
Ellis wrote the Coleoptera section of the VCH for Warwickshire and assisted with other VCH volumes, but published little else his most important paper being 'Criocephaluis polonicus, Motsch. a genus and species of Longicorn Coleoptera new to Britain (ERJV, 1903, 259-261) which he took as larvae in the New Forest with F. Gilbert Smith. (species now synonymised with Arhopalus ferus Mulsant)
Ellis's main collection is in the Yorkshire museum purchased in 1945 and arranged by Walter Douglas Hincks and Reginald Wagstaffe (see Hincks’ entry below). It is an extensive collection of entomology, mostly coleoptera but with large numbers of Hemiptera and Hymenoptera (especially ants) as well. Simms’ (1968) estimate of approximately 100,000 specimens (across all orders) in the collection probably holds true. South of England provenance for most specimens. Denton (1993) estimates 80,000 Coleoptera specimens including 12,282 specimens of Carabidae (covered in his publication). Ellis was working with many other collectors, which are listed in the introduction of Denton 1993 – which is based on a rearrangement of the Ellis collection. Notably W G Blatch who was a correspondent and Blatch’s entomological diaries (also in the Y0rkshire Museum collection) note the acquisition of drawers and boxes of material from Blatch. The paper archive at the Yorkshire Museum associated with Ellis includes field diaries, lecture notes, and ephemera. Also three books of site lists: Coleoptera of Cannock Chase, Coleoptera of the New Forest, and Coleoptera of Huntington. Denton (1993) is important to an understanding his collection in the Yorkshire Museum.(Information from Adam Parker).
Ellis gave beetles collected by G.Gulliver to Birmingham Museum (10 August 1914) and also beetles collected by himself at Crowthorne (24 January 1935). His material is also in the Blatch collection there. A letter copy at Liverpool dated 5 July 1932 from him (then living at Speldhurst Close, Sevenoaks), concerning the Mason collection at Bolton, states: ‘Many years ago the Mason collection came into your possession and many of the duplicates... to me. I did not incorporate many of these duplicates into my own collection.’ Other specimens collected by him are in the Bedwell collection at Norwich; the general collection at Doncaster; the collection of the RHS (8 specimens with initials HWE, Carabids, Buprestids and Cerambycids. Information from Andy Salisbury). Mackechnie Jarvis (1976) p.108 records that he owned the Blatch and Blenkarn collections, and that part of his collection went to Harrow School and part was sold. A dozen or so beetles collected by Ellis in the Isle of Wight, Knowle, Gravesend, Tonbridge, Eastleigh and Bedfordshire are in the Tullie House Museum, Carlisle (Information from Steve Hewitt). Correspondence with C.J.Wainwright (1907-1939) is in the RESL (Pederesen (2002) p.126). There are obituaries in EMM, 1943, 280 and in Proc.RESL, 8, 1944, 69 (incorrectly named as Henry Willoughby Ellis).
FESL 1900 (Council 1916-18, 1922-24, 1929 -31; Vice President 1924, 1931. Member of the Ent. Club 1923 (Secretary 1924), K.G.Blair who wrote the EMM obituary noting that his 'genial presence' at meetings would be much missed. (MD 12/04, 12/21)