Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Rye, Edward Caldwell

by no contributor recorded

RYE, EDWARD CALDWELL (1832–1885), entomologist, eldest son of Edward Rye, a London solicitor of Norfolk descent, was born at Golden Square on 10 April 1832. His sister, Miss M. S. Rye, was well known in connection with female pauper emigration; and his brother, Mr. Walter Rye, wrote voluminously on Norfolk antiquities. Originally intended to succeed to his father's business, Edward was educated at King's College School, but, tiring of routine work, he devoted his life to the study of natural history, and especially of entomology. He made valuable collections of the English coleoptera (to the list of which he added very many species). He was the author of a useful work on ‘British Beetles’ (1866), was co-editor of the ‘Entomologists' Monthly Magazine,’ and for several years was editor of the ‘Zoological Record.’ Later in life he became librarian of the Royal Geographical Society and was a constant contributor to the ‘Field,’ and for some years honorary secretary of the geographical section of the British Association. He died of smallpox on 7 Feb. 1885, in his fifty-third year.

He married the daughter of G. R. Waterhouse, F.R.S., of the British Museum, the writer on mammalia.

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