A HISTORY OF LANCASHIRE
Unfortunately few of them left any enduring record of their labours; some of the later members of the group however, such as Chappell of Manchester and Gregson of Liverpool, were able to take advantage of the increased facilities for the recording of their knowledge afforded by the numerous periodicals devoted to natural history, and to them we certainly owe the best part of our knowledge of the entomological fauna of south Lancashire as it was before the changes of the last forty or fifty years had so altered the face of the county.
One of the earliest of these students of nature of whom we have any knowledge was James Crowther,[1] born 1768 in a cellar in Deansgate, Manchester, and employed at the age of nine as 'draw boy' at petticoat weaving. He was a botanist as well as an entomologist, but poverty necessitated the disposal of his collections before his death (1847), and except from oral traditions and a few references in natural history works of the last century, we know but little of his work.
Jethro Tinker of Staleybridge is a figure which stands out more distinctly. He was born near Staleybridge in 1788, where he died in 1871. Quite without education he began life as a hand-loom weaver, becoming overseer of a mill, inn keeper, and finally a gardener, but continuing throughout his life an ardent and self-taught botanist and entomologist. His entomological collections were left to the Staleybridge museum, where they now are, and a public monument in the town park attests the respect in which he was held by his fellow citizens.
Edward Hobson (after whom is named a variety of a beetle, Chrysomela orichalcia, Müll.) was born in Manchester 1782, dying there in 1830. His claim to fame rests perhaps more in his researches as a muscologist than as an entomologist, although Stephens was much indebted to him for many of his localities in his Manual of the Coleoptera of Great Britain.
Other names that occur are those of George Crozier, a saddler, born at Eccleston in the Fylde, who died at Manchester 1847, an accomplished entomologist and a member of the old Banksian Society of Manchester, and Samuel Gibson, born near Hebden Bridge 1790, died 1849, an entirely self-educated naturalist. The latter's entomological collections were for many years in the Peel Park Museum in Manchester, and his fine collection of fossil shells of the lower coal measures still remains in the Owens College Museum of that city. Samuel Carter, a cabinet maker, also of Manchester, who rearranged the entomological collections in the Manchester Museum in 1858, was one of the same group.
More especially should be mentioned Joseph Chappell, a mechanic in Sir Joseph Whitworth's works in Manchester, whose obituary appeared in the Manchester City News, 17 October 1896. His knowledge of the entomological fauna of Lancashire was intimate and exhaustive, his enthusiasm and perseverance unlimited; he has told the present
- ↑ For particulars as to the career of this and of other south Lancashire artisan naturalists I am greatly indebted to Dr. H. Bailey of Port Erin, Isle of Man, some time of Pendleton, Manchester.—W.E.S.
