| AdminHistory | The earliest collection of lepidoptera material held in the British Museum of Natural History was comprised of the Hans Sloane collection purchased through an Act of Parliament in 1853. Numerous benefactors contributed to the development of the collections during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, including the Entomological Club, the Honourable East India Company, and the Meyrick, Oberthur and Rothschild collections. The department recorded around 350,000 specimens in 1904; that figure stands at almost 9 million in 2010. Parts of the department moved over time as the collections grew and were based at the British Museum at Bloomsbury and Tring, before the collections were consolidated during the 1960s at the South Kensington site. The collection was re-arranged around 1904 during the term of G F Hampson and F A Heron. Norman Denbigh Riley began work at the museum in 1911, initially on the Godman-Salvin collection of neo-tropical lepidoptera. He took over responsibility for the Rhopalocera from F A Heron, and served as Keeper from 1932-1955. He worked for many years as a part-time Senior Scientific Officer after retirement. Willie Horace Thomas Tams joined the Section in 1920 on the retirement of G F Hampson, who had held responsibility for Heterocera, and J Hartley Durrant worked in the Section as Curator of the Walsingham Collection of Microlepidoptera from 1910 until 1928. When Riley became Keeper, responsibility for the Rhopalocera devolved to the Clerk, Alfred G Gabriel, who was promoted to a scientific grade in 1938. George A Bisset and Roger Washbourn were appointed to the Section in 1935 and 1936 respectively. The scientific staff were supported by attendants (later called Experimental Officers) such as J D Bradley, D S Fletcher, T G Howarth and H Stringer, and a large number of distinguished voluntary workers, including Brigadier W H Evans. The Lepidoptera section was evacuated to How Caple Court in Herefordshire during WWII. In 1969 the section was divided into the Rhopalocera (butterflies) under R I Vane-Wright, Microlepidoptera (the smaller moths) under P E S Whalley, and Macrolepidoptera (larger moths) under A Watson.
See also: 'The Lepidoptera Collections at The Natural History Museum (BMNH) in South Kensington, London' by P R Ackery, in 'Holarctic Lepidoptera' Volume 6 Number 1, March 1999. |