The Golden Age of collecting, the Queketts of Somerset.

[nomad]

Well after a busy week at work, I was feeling nostalgic for the good old days in blighty, where the brethren of net roamed the fields of this green and pleasant land. So I wrote this piece to cheer me up from my summer cold and bad back. This is a time in blighty before trains, planes and automobiles. When its lepidoptera was not fully known and each field trip into the unspoilt countryside added to our knowledge of our the insects of these islands. This time has been forgotten by most in there busy materialistic world and I hope that you might enjoy this article. I would like to thank my friend Frank Toner for his super pencil drawing and it is reproduced here by my photo.

The story of the early lives of the Quekket family may have been mirrored by a thousand other 19th century British families. If you lived in the countryside during that period and you were lucky enough to have been born in to a professional family, such as that of a vicar or schoolmaster you may have got a good education in nature study. If you were unlucky enough to have been born into a poor family, then you would have struggled to have found enough to eat, but that is another story. William Quekett, the master of Langport Grammar instilled a love of nature into his six children. Children like the Queketts that could devote their spare time to the study of nature, would have taken up a hobby such as butterfly, plant or egg-collecting. In the early to middle part of the 19th century the Quekket brothers would discover and capture a number of now extinct butterflies around the small town of Langport in the Somerset Levels of the West Country of Southern England. Their captures include an almost mythical British butterfly which certainly once occurred here but has been forgotten by most, being lost to us by others that sought money instead of science. The Queketts story is an interesting one that that deserves to be told and the Quekett brothers rightly deserve a place among the best of the pioneer British Aurelians . The Queketts insect collections sadly did not survive and only John Quekett left a few notes of his discovery of M. arion in Somerset. Between 1834 and 1875 John and Edward Quekett Natural History collections were kept in Langport's 13th century Hanging Chapel, which they rented as their museum. The Hanging Chapel was built above a gate that was part of towns defence walls. Some of the Quekett butterfly specimens on show in their museum were documented by others. For more information please read on but first


A Summer's day with John, Edwin and Edward Quekett.

It is not too difficult to imagine Edward, Edwin and John Quekett awakening on a late Summers July day in Langport during late 1820s to prepare for a planned field trip. They dressed quickly, had their breakfast, packed their nets and other collecting paraphernalia. They said goodbye to mama who told them " to be careful in the ' wild lands ' " as she called them. They would use the old bird hunter Arthur's route through the marshes. It was only a short walk down to the River Parrett from their Langport home and they were in high spirits setting out on their big expedition . Edward the oldest and more outgoing took charge, John his younger brother was quiet and reserved but thoughtful and kind who shared a great passion for nature. Edwin's passion was botany and he took his metal vasculum with him, but like both his brothers he also hope to collect some butterflies. Edward would have liked to have taken a rifle to shoot birds for his taxidermy collection but they were very expensive, he was saving hard for that day from the money he earned working at the town's bank. He was occasionally given bird specimens by ' Arthur ' the feather hunter for his taxidermy. They had been kindly lent a boat by their father's friend, an old one that leaked a little. They rowed a short distance down the river, here they saw their older brother William fishing on the bank with his friend for eels and they waved. Further on taking a side channel into the reeds, Cranes flew overhead and they disturbed a fishing Heron. A hidden bittern boomed and the reeds were alive with warblers. It was even at this early hour hot and humid. Today, was going to be quite an adventure venturing further out into the marshlands, where they had never been before. The channel narrowed and the Reeds closed in but after some time they came to an open area of water with reedbeds and they made for a drier area on the edge of a marshy Fen. Here as they approached a vivid fiery orange butterfly flew over the boat but disappeared into the reed beds. They had not encountered anything like it before . They removed their boots and stockings and waded to a drier part of the fen where the Marsh thistles grew tall. Again they saw the fiery orange butterfly but it remained out of reach. John already knew his butterflies well and mentioned to Edward " that it must be dispar which Lewin and Donovan had wrongly called hippothoe and which Haworth had later given the name Chrysophanus dispar ". Then there on a thistle feeding, was a fine male which John took with one stroke of his net, his hands trembled as he took it out of his net.. Later Edwin took a perfect female as it sought nectar too. They did indeed prove to be dispar and they were pleased as punch, wait until they showed their father and brother William . Soon the butterflies were safely stored in their collecting box. Returning to the boat they lounged in the hot sunshine and ate their lunch of apples, bread and cheese and drank their weak home made beer . As they ate and talked, a few more dispar were seen, but out among those inaccessible reedbeds. They rowed on a little further, reaching another bank . They then waded through a wet fen ablaze with Yellow iris their feet squelching in the mud with the low limestone hills of Aller on the horizon. John turned to his brothers and said " I must explore up there one day ". Dragonflies were everywhere but much too active to be caught. Then there was a flash of an even more intense fiery orange and Edward set off in pursuit and came back triumphant with the prize in his net. " Another dispar " said Edward " Placing it in their cyanide bottle, John saw at once it was not dispar, it was certainly a Copper butterfly, then John knew it must be virgaureae ,he has seen it along with dispar in his father's cherished books, Edward Donovan's volumes of Natural History of British Insects. They were not allowed to remove the books from their fathers study but occasionally John and his brothers would be allowed in to read them . " It's a very rare butterfly " said John. " We must come all come here to hunt for both Copper butterflies again, what a wonderful collecting day it has been ". Returing in their boat, a rare and elusive Spotted Crake flew low overhead. " Damn " said Edward I wish I had that gun.



John and Edwin Quekett in the late 1820s setting out on their big butterfly adventure by Frank Toner. John is in the foreground and Edwin is in the background holding his metal vasculum for his plant specimens.



The butterfly the early British Aurelians called the Scarce or Middle Copper L. virgaureae. These specimens are from my collection, they are from Italy.



These meadows at Langport were once Marshland. When the Queketts were collecting here there would have been no railway bridge, this was not built till 1853.

Visiting Langport recently, I followed the foot paths across the meadows, many with drains indicating that these would have been inaccessible marshland in the early to middle part of the 19th century. The Fenland stretching out from the Langport to the south and west was a vast area and both the flora and fauna were greatly different to that we can encounter today. The Queketts even with the aid of a borrowed boat could only have been able to access the Fenland in the immediate area of Langport.



View across the Langport Marshes  towards Aller Hill where John Quekett discovered a population of M. arion in 1833. In the foreground is a drain, these are still cleared today to stop the meadows flooding.

Next - more on the Quekett brothers and the butterflies they captured.

[nomad]

William Quekett (1763-1842) family originated in Scotland then moved to Cockermouth in Cumbria. William Quekett was the master of Langport grammer school for 52 years from 1790 until his Death. Langport is a small market town by the River Parrett and is situated in the Somerset Levels of the West Country of Southern England. Although a well respected member of Langport's community, William's income was a mere £25 per year, just £8 more than an agricultural labourer. Money would have been in very short supply for his wife Mary to bring up her Six children. Three of William and Mary's six children would acheive no a measure of fame in their later life.

The Quekett brothers were not the only persons to be collecting in the Langport area during the earlier part of the 19th Century. John Woodland and William John Paul, friends of the Queketts, also collected a number of the now extinct British butterflies at Langport and some of their specimens have survived. The Celebrated entomologist James Charles Dale came to collect in the rich Langport locality beteen 1834 and 1845 and his notes of his collecting expeditions here, have survived in his diaries. It is known that each of the Quekett children specialized in different fields of natural history study but all may have collected butterflies around Langport, often together.

The Quekett and other 19th century Langport collectors.

John Thomas Quekett. ( 1815-1861). John became interested in natural history from an early age, his great love was the study of entomology and microscopy. Because of John's fathers meagre income, he made his first microscope from a roasting jack, a parasol and fragments of brass. At just sixteen he gave lectures with his homemade microscope at Langport. John Queketts the Microscopist and Histologist became the most famous of the Quekett brothers. In 1831 he went up to study medicine at the London Hospital. In 1856 he was made a Professor of the Hunterian Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons in London. John Quekett was sent specimens for his microscopy study from the most famous naturalist explorers of his day, including Charles Darwin and Joseph Hooker. In 1861 he went to Pangbourne in Berkshire to recuperate from illness but died there in 1861, aged just 46. The Quekett Microscopical Society was formed in his honour and is still going strong today. Recently among the Professor's slide collection, butterfly wings from specimens collected in the Himalayas and other countries have been found. 



A Portrait of John Quekett.


Edwin John Quekett ( 1808-1847) Edwin's passion was botany but he also is known to have collected butterflies. He presented a pair of M. arion from Langport to Entomological club in 1837. He also was like his brother a microscopist. He qualified as surgeon in London and later he was appointed Lecturer in Botany at the London Hospital. He helped form the now Royal Microscopital Society. Edwin died at just 38 from diphtheria.

William Quekett. ( 1802-1888) The eldest brother became the rector of Warrington in Lancashire, Northern England. He published an autobiography, a rare work, My Sayings and Doings. William was certainly interested in Natural History but which branch I am not sure. His autobiography is said to contain many fishing stories. Sutton ( 1993) mentions that William was a collector of butterflies.

Edward Quekett. ( 1805-1875) Edward's passion was ornithology and he was a taxadermist. A study of birds in the 18th century usually meant shooting them. Edward is known to have had a number of extinct British birds in his collection. According to Sutton (1993) Edward was also a collector of butterflies. Edward worked at Stuckley bank in Langport now its a Nat West.



Edward is buried with his wife, and small son and they lie next to his fathers and mothers grave in the redundant historic Langport church of All Saints. He was his fathers favourite, perhaps because he remained at Langport.

Eliza Quekett ( 1812- 1875) Eliza was a botanist who married the botanist Charles Frederick White ( 1818-1896). They both studied microscoptic Fungi and mosses.

John Woodland (d? d?) was a local collector who is known to have been friends with both John and Edward Quekett. He was also a banker at Stuckley's Taunton Branch and a manager of the Bridgewater branch. Later in the 1877 census he has retired to live at Minehead. His surviving Copper butterfly specimens from Langport have become some of the most famous of our historic butterflies.

William John Paul. ( 1817-1896). A local Langport collector who also worked at Langport's Stuckley Bank. A few specimen of M. arion collected at Langport survive in the Taunton Heritage centre.

A portal into the life of the Quekett children was given by Sir John Lubbock in 1877 who was once a student of the then late John Quekett. " Edward,Edwin, John and their inseparable companion Eliza would go on excursions into the rich meadows of the River Parrett and explore the ruins and woods, the old Bendictine monastery of Mucheleney lying to the south of Langport" . As the Queketts reached their teens their interest intensified and they explored the vast marshland around Langport and the hill range to the north.



My image of the Norfolk Broads, part of the Langport marshes would have looked like this, there would also have been large areas of boggy fenland.

[nomad]

The Extinct Butterflies of Langport.

Lycaena virgaureae and Lycaena dispar.

The widespread fraud by the early dealers Plastead and others in the 19th century had clouded the history of L. virgaureae in Britain by importing vast numbers of continental specimens to sell to British collectors. There is however, some evidence by the early Aurelians that this species occurred in 18th century and early 19th century Britain. William Lewin ( 1747-1795) of Bath who was one of the few early entomologists to not to confuse L. virgaureae with P. chryseis = L. hippothoe saw this species in the marshes in August and it appeared in his book The Papilio's of Great Britain published in 1795. Lewin's book was also the first to show the newly discovered Large Copper, Lycaena dispar . Most surviving L. virgaureae specimens in British Historical collections may have come from dealers but two specimens that are now kept in the Taunton Heritage Centre are almost certainly genuine examples from this country. There is a specimen L. virgaureae at Oxford that Adrain Haworth gave to Professor Westwood as undoubted British specimen and this was figured by Ford in his Butterflies on plate 1 Historic butterflies ( 1945). There are also early specimens of L. virgaureae in the Dale collection and among these one is labelled the Isle of Ely, Cambridgeshire and the other Yaxley. P .B. M. Allan (1966) wrote " It came about that this handsome butterfly.... at one time and perhaps for several thousand years indigenous to the British Islands, became lost to the British List and stigmatised as an outcast all through the lust of money on an underworld who prostituated a science for its own ends" Allan wrote more on the British Lycaena virgaureae than any other entomologist.



The specimen of L. virgaureae that Adrain Haworth gave to Professor John Westwood in the early 19th century.



Specimen of L. virgaureae from the Dale collection at OUNHM labelled Yaxley.

Lycaena dispar was found primarly in the fens of eastern England and those in at Taunton are the only known purported surviving specimens from the Somerset Levels in the west of England.

In the Taunton Heritage Centre there are the remains of four specimens of L. dispar and one L. virgaureae that were thought to have been taken by the Quekett brothers but are now known to have been presented to the museum by John Woodland. In 1864 John Woodland presented a small collection to William Bidgood the curator of the Taunton Castle Museum Unfortunately John Woodland's collection had been neglected in his old age and the Lycaena were in a dilapidated state. Bidgood perserved the remaining parts of the Woodland dispar and virgaureae that he could for posterity. Woodland told Bidgood that he had taken both the L. dispar and L. virgaureae in the marshes at Langport himself. Bidgood however has caused a little confusion as to the number of L. virgaureae that Woodland presented to the museum. In a letter to A.E Hudd of the Bristol Museum, Bidgood who wrongly identified the L. virgaureae as L chryseis= L hippothoe mentions that Woodland donated two or three specimens of L. virgaureae to the museum but in his surviving inventory of Woodland's collection he only lists one. Bidgood also mentions that Woodland gave the museum a dispar specimen caught by himself in 1860, when the other virgaureae were probably presented. In 2015, I was examining the Rawlinson collection at the Taunton Heritage Centre for specimens of M. arion that originated in Somerset. In the Rawlinson collection I came across the two specimens of the M. arion that were recorded by Bidgood as being donated by William Bond Paul who had collected them at Langport. I also came across an ancient dispar and virgaureae specimen in the same collection which may be the missing Woodland specimens. William Rawlinson a wealthy silk merchant and collector of fine art, donated his collection to the Taunton museum in 1878 before he went to live in Chelsea London. It does seem that smaller earlier bequests were placed within his collection.



William Bidgood of the Taunton Castle Museum. The image was taken around the time Bidgood went to the Quekett's Hanging Chapel Museum to view and take possession of their collections.

 

Specimen of L. dispar found in the Rawlinson collection of the Taunton Heritage centre, perhaps a Somerset specimen caught by Woodland.



Taunton Castle Museum where the insect collections were once kept. I have no idea who that person is that is photo bombing my image.



The remains of the four dispar and one virgaureae specimen presented to William Bidgood in 1864 by John Woodland. Collections of the Taunton Heritage Centre.

The Woodland Collection contained 257 butterflies and numerous moths species. The butterflies were listed by Bidgood. It contained some very strange specimens. There was a specimen of Polyommatus alexis ( not British) and Parnassius apollo, a very doubtful British species and rare migrants such as Issoria lathonia. However, all this proves is that Woodland bought some specimens from dealers. Woodland as a Justice of the Peace was regarded as a man of integrity and there is no reason to doubt his word that he took the Lycaena specimens in the marshes at Langport. Woodland was highly regarded by John Quekett and he mentions him in his London diaries. Woodland's collection is missing . His cabinet along with the contents seem to have been disposed off at some point before the 1980s. ( Sutton 1993 ) Luckily the remains of Woodlands dispar and virgaureae were preserved in a special box and they are now regarded, in spite of their condition, as some of the most historically important British specimens.

John Quekett and Edward Quekett Hanging chapel museum, was one of the first kind to be opened to the public. Here visitors could see specimens of the birds and butterflies that were found in the Langport area. Two years after the death of Edward Quekett, his wife left the collections to the Taunton Museum. William Bidgood went to Langport to take possession of the collection. He wrote that on entering the museum " everything was covered in Mildew, moths had played havoc with the Edward Queketts stuffed birds and mites with the insects. There were the remains three or four dispar and two or three virgaureae ". Bidgood has been assured by the family that the Lycaena were taken in the marshes at Langport. This was confirmed by the local collector William John Paul who told Bidgood that he often visited the museum in his younger days and remembered the two Lycaena species well and had also been told by the Queketts that they had been taken at Langport. He mentions they were taken before his collecting days. Sadly none of the Quekett insect specimens could be saved, what treasures were lost including the Queketts long series of M. arion from Aller Hill.



The Hanging Chapel, the Quekett Museum in Langport now a Masonic lodge.

The late Roger Sutton of Taunton who researched the Langport L. dispar and L. virgaureae wrote that they were taken at some point after 1820, probably when Woodland and the Queketts were teenagers. He mentions that the bulk of their collections were made between 1830 and 1840. The Langport Marshes were drained by 1838 and converted into grazing pasture meadows. Today, there is much evidence of this, deep drainage dykes keep the area free of water. When the Queketts were young , parts of Langport were often flooded in the Winter and Spring. John Queketts surviving diaries date from 1840 onwards when he was in London. There is a strong possibility that the dispar and virgaureae may have been taken by the Quekett brothers at some point in the late 1820s to the early 1830s. It is also highly likely that both Edward and John Quekett collected with John Woodland in the marshes of Langport. William Bond Paul was certainly collecting butterflies in the middle of the 1830s at Langport and as he mentions the dispar and virgaureae were collected before he was active in the field. Virgaureae is not normally a species of lowland marshlands on the continent and sometimes it flies at high elevation. However, virgaureae does like marshy meadows, in Britain it either occured in that type of locality or actually flew in the same fens as dispar but inhabited a slightly different ecological niche.

One must remember than on the continent, Papilio machaon flies in a wide range of habitats where as our race brittannicus inhabits fenland. According to one British butterfly expert, the genuine virgaureae specimens from Britain that were caught here were different in at least the hindwing wingshape from those that occurred on the continent.

[nomad]

The subject of whether or not Lycaena dispar and Lycaena virgaureae once occurred in the West Country of England including Somerset has been reviewed by a number of butterfly historians. This subject is important to historians which study British butterflies, because L. dispar is thought to have been confined to the fens of Eastern England and L. virgaureae is considered by most lepidopterists as a very doubtful extinct native species. That writer, P.B.M. Allan, wrote an article ' Copper butterflies in the West Country ( Entomologist's Record and Journal of Variation 1966 Vol 78). In his article Allan mentions the L. dispar and L. virgaureae specimens in the Taunton Museum but wrongly believed that they were caught by the Queketts when infact they came from John Woodland. These specimens have been moved from the Castle Museum Taunton to the Heritage centre in that town.

The late Roger Sutton of Taunton became very intrested in the Lycaena specimens in his local museum. In 1993 Sutton published his findings, ' Were the Large Copper Lycaena dispar dispar ( Haw) and the Scarce Copper Lycaena virgaureae ( Linn) once indigenous species to Somerset ( Occasional paper no 7. Butterfly Conservation). It seems that there was little doubt in Sutton's mind that both species were taken by John Woodland and also the Quekett brothers at Langport.

In this thread, I gave a fictional account of the Quekett brothers spending a day in the marshes at Langport in Somerset where they caught both L. dispar and L. virgaureae but did they?? This story was based on specimens that were seen in the Quekett museum that were reputed to have been taken in Somerset. I thought it was now time for a general review of this subject based on  the information that we have but before that, here is what A.E. Hudd, the curator of the Bristol Museum originally revealed in 1904 in the Lepidoptera section of Volume one of the Victorian Country History of Somerset, concerning the capture of L. dispar and L. virgaureae in that country.

Note. William Bidgood gave the wrong scientific name 'hippothoe ( chryseis to the Quekett and Woodland specimens, they were in fact what the British called the' Scarce Copper Lyceana virgaureae.

"Later Mr. Bidgood wrote: 'About the year 1864 Mr. Woodland gave me a small collection of butterflies taken near Langport early in the century; among them were two or three P. dispar, which he told me were taken by himself. In his early days he had taken care of them, but he got old and neglected them, so that when they came to me they were dilapidated. I preserved every bit I could. Among them were two or three specimens of the "Purple-edged Copper," P. chryseis, which he informed me were taken with the dispar. "

"'Early in the last century the late Professor Quekett and his brother (a banker at Langport) formed a museum in the "Hanging Chapel" there. This was transferred to our society about 1876–7. The collection had been much neglected, so that when I went to take possession I found everything covered with mildew, moth was playing havoc with the birds and mites with the insects. There were here also three or four dispar, which I was assured by the family were taken at Langport, and also two or three P. chryseis. This was confirmed by Mr. W. Bond Paul, who died in 1896, aged over eighty. He told me he remembered the insects well, but they were taken before his collecting days. This Mr. Paul had a long series of L. arion taken by himself at Langport; he gave a pair to the (Taunton) museum collection' (W. Bidgood in. litt., Jan., 1901) "

"It was reported, but I could not ascertain particulars, that a specimen of the 'Large Copper' was taken near Clevedon about 1869 or 1870. Not being able to find either the exact date or the name of the captor I did not record it in my Catalogue of the Lepidoptera of the Bristol District, but it is quite possible, I think, that it was found there. The late Mr. W. R. Crotch recorded a specimen from near Weston-super-Mare in 1856 : 'C. dispar fell ignobly, slain by the hat of a friend, who kindly made the spoil over to me in utter ignorance of its rarity' (Intelligencer, ii. 165 ; iv. 21)"

"[Polyommatus hippothoe, L. (chryseis, Hub.), seems formerly to have been occasionally taken in England. Lewin in his British Butterflies (1795) says (p. 86) : 'I once met with two of these butterflies settled on a bank in the marshes in the month of August.' Mr. Bidgood informed me there were remains of two or three specimens in an old collection presented to the Taunton Museum, which he understood had been taken in the marshes near Langport, early in the nineteenth century, by Mr. Woodland. Specimens were also in the Quekett collection from the same locality]"

So it seems, according to William Bidgood, the curator of the Castle Museum at Taunton , John Woodland, the Taunton collector had told Bidgood that he had taken both L. virgaureae and L. dispar in the marshes at Langport in Somerset. For more on John Woodland see the last post in this thread.

Then there is the Quekett's ' Hanging Chapel ' museum specimens. Bidgood mentions that he had been told by the family that the L. virgaureae and L. dispar specimens in the museum were taken at Langport. As he mentions in his account he went to the museum to collect the contents which were in such a bad state that they could not be saved . This was after death of Edward Quekett, at the request of the deceased, wife. John and Edwin Quekett had died a number of years previously. So who told Bidgood that the specimens of L. virgaureae and L. dispar were taken by the Queketts. Was it Edward's wife?? or had one of the brothers or sisters given him the information previously.

William John Paul, the Langport collector who was a friend of the Queketts, stated to Bidgood that he knew the Lycaena specimens in the museum well, but did not give him any further information on them.

There is also W.D. Crotch account of the capture of a single L. dispar specimen at Weston-super Mare, that is mentioned by A.E. Hudd . That's the one that was taken by his friends hat. Crotch also reported a specimen of M. arion and P. machaon from Weston-super Mare in Somerset. Crotch, who lived in this area at Uphill near Weston-super Mare also wrote in his report of the capture of dispar in the Weekly Intelligencer for 1856 " I must regret that my absence from the locality prevents a search, which, if one may believe the aborigines, would have had a fair chance of success." It seems that Crotch when he wrote his account for the journal was staying in Shrewsbury. It begs the question, why at a later date did Crotch, a very enthusiastic collector, not visit his friend's locality to search for L. dispar , especially as Crotch would have known of its great rarity being nearly extinct in the fens of Eastern England. Crotch made the statement in his article ' Doings in the West'. P.B.M. Allan believed Crotch's report of L. dispar at Weston-super Mare, because the Somerset Levels extended to the south of the coastal town. One would like to believe Mr Crotch but could this have possibly been a hoax because no further L. dispar specimens were ever reported by W. Crotch or anyone else from this area.

Among his family, John Quekett was the entomologist , so he would have certainly known the history of the Somerset Copper butterflies in his museum . Recently, I have began to wonder why, if John Quekett or his brothers, did in fact take either L. virgaureae or L. dispar in the Somerset marshes why they left no written account. As has been mentioned, John Quekket surviving diaries do not start until 1840 and these do not mention any captures of the Lycaena ( Sutton 1993) However, John Quekett does mention John Woodland, who was known to him.

The famous entomologist J. C. Dale collected Maculinea arion with John Quekett at Langport. James Charles Dale was a prolific correspondent and most of his correspondence has survived and is kept at the Library of the Hope Department of Entomology. I contacted the head librarian and inquired were there any letters between the Queketts and Dale. Yes, there were. There were surviving letters to Dale from both John and Edward Quekett. I made appointments to view the letters to see if I could discover more about the Lycaena from Somerset. It would be also interesting to learn of the relationship between Dale and the Queketts and perhaps find further information on the History of Maculinea arion at Langport. Plus, it would be a very good insight to how entomologists in the first half of the 19th century went about their collecting.

I shall be heading to the Hope Library next week to study the Quekett letters to J.C. Dale.

[nomad]

The Quekett - J.C.Dale letters.

As you sit in the reading room of the library of the Hope Department of Entomology, which is in another part of the museum from where the insect collections are kept, you are surrounded by the portraits of famous British entomologists. Chief among those are the original paintings of the first Hope Professor of Zoology, John Obadiah Westwood and Frederick Hope . A cardboard box is awaiting my arrival . This box contains the letters from James Charles Dale from his correspondences with the names P and Q. I am visiting to study the letters that John Quekett and Edward Quekett wrote to J.C. Dale in the 19th century. There were 17 letters from John Quekett and 43 from Edward. The first letter that John Quekett wrote to Dale was written 181 years ago in 1834. John Quekett was a youthful 19 years old and J.C. Dale, the renown entomologist was then 42 years of age. There were also a few letters, from Edward Paul and his brother William who were two Langport collectors and friends of John Quekett.

John Quekett (1815-1861).

Reading those letters written in the middle part of the 19th century by John Quekett who later became the famous microscopist, and also those of his brother Edward, and their friends the Pauls, I was transported back to the time of those gentleman naturalists when Britain had many more entomological treasures and they were more common and widespread. Those letters certainly changed my perception of how entomologists operated in the 19th century.



James Charles Dale ( 1815-1861)


19th century letters sent before 1841 in Britain were simply folded, and then wax sealed with the address. Those letters sent after 1841 were placed in small envelopes with their Penny Red stamps . The writer had to be an expert at folding larger pieces of paper to enable them fit them in those envelopes. After the letters were placed within their envelopes, red wax ring seals ,were also placed on the back. Opening the letters and then folding them again to replace them and placing some of those in their miniature envelopes took up much of my precious allocated time in the library.

The most interesting letters regarding entomology were those of John Quekett. Most of John's entomological letters were written to Dale between 1834-1836 when he was dividing his time between his medical studies in London and collecting when he was at his Langport home. John Quekett's handwriting at first was rather small and neat but as his medical and microscope studies limited his time, his handwriting became untidy and large and very difficult to read. Deciphering the John Quekett letters, especially where there are scientific names of a number of different insects,would give a devoted biographer many hours of intense study. John Quekett and J.C. Dale used many specific and genus names that are no longer in use to day.

In John's older brother's, Edward Quekett's letters, there is very little entomology. Edward's passion was ornithology and his letters to J.C. Dale are usually short and more matter of fact. Most of Edward's letters were written at a later date than his brother Johns. Edward was on very friendly terms with Dale, and in some of his letters he accepts invitations, usually to shoot game birds in the grounds of the squire's house in Glanvilles Wootton situated in the Dorset countryside. John Quekett was also invited to Dale's estate but it seems he had to usually decline because he was too busy in London.

Studying the letters, I could find no references to either L. virgaureae or L. dispar being collected at Langport by either John or Edward Quekett. If any of the Queketts did take those species in the Langport Marshes, it must have been before May 1834, the date of John's first letter to Dale.

There was however, a special reference to Lycaena dispar in the John Quekett letters which may indicate that John Quekett and probably his brother Edward are unlikely to have collected at least the L. dispar in the Somerset marshes. Their older brother William was not an entomologist and later he moved to Lancashire when he became a cleric, although he possibly collected butterflies in his youth, he makes no mention of this in his biography, it was fishing and the church which took up his time.

In a letter dated, November 19th 1836, Dale has agreed to exchange some of John Quekett's prized Maculina arion Langport specimens through his correspondence network for other rarities. Considering the specimens he needs for his collection, John Quekett mentions that he had only two Papilio machaon, one of which has an antennae missing and wrote, " and of the L.dispar only two good ones which you sent me."and regarding the foodplant of L. dispar " I should very much like to have the seeds of the dock, I have no doubt myself, but it would grow well in these parts, as I have heard you say our country is not unlike Whittlesea Mere "

Sometimes, we search for answers but only succeed in having more questions. It does seems that John Quekett , was mentioning to Dale that he had only the two good specimens of dispar in his collection from him but may have had others in a lesser condition?. Only two years after John Quekett wrote his letter the Langport marshes were drained in 1838.

The question remains, did John Quekett place his two Dale specimens of the L. dispar in the museum at Langport? . After a request by Dale, John Quekett was asking for his duplicates to be sent to him from Langport for exchange . Also, why in the same letter dated November 1836, was John Quekett asking for seeds of L. dispar foodplant Rumex hydrolapathum from Dale, was he going to try to obtain some larvae of L. dispar from East Anglian stock to breed this species, there is no mention that he did so. Rumex hydrolapathum should have been plentiful on the Somerset Levels, including in the Langport marshes and in spite of the drainage it is still frequent that area ( Atlas of the Somerset Flora 1997). In a letter, John Quekett mentions collecting potted wild plants from the Turf Moor near Langport, to send to a Mr Buster, J.C. Dales friend, so he seemed to have known the botany of his area . Perhaps John Quekett has not encountered the dock because it grew in more inaccessible places. If the Queketts had encountered ' L. dispar' in the Somerset marshes, they, especially John Quekett would have known that the foodplant Rumex hydrolapathum grew at Langport. I believe this new information now casts considerable doubt that John Quekett or Edward actually collected L. dispar at Langport.

In John Quekett early Langport letters to Dale, he mentions that specimens would be placed in " our cabinet".  In the Victorian County History of Somerset, there is a reference that it was Edward who rented the Hanging Chapel for his ornithological collections between 1834 and 1875. We know there was also a local insect collection there, and this probably contained John Quekett specimens. When John Quekett died young, leaving a young family, his personal effects such as his microscopes were sold, and there was no mention of any cabinet sale, so it is likely that all his best local specimens remained at Langport.   William Bidgood mentions there were three of four L. dispar specimens in the Hanging Chapel Museum. So at least two of the dispar specimens in the museum may not have originated from Dale, however Bidgood was never certain when it came to the numbers of the specimens he had seen. When John Quekett was at Langport, he was visited by a dealer with the name of ' Mansfield '. Because John Quekett had very little money as a young man he wrote to Dale ( Dec 26th 1835) that he exchanged some poor arion with Mansfield, who was very keen to get them. In the butterfly exchanges between John Quekett and Mansfield, there was no mention of any Lycaena in the letters sent to Dale. Edwards interest was birds and he is most unlikely to have bought any entomological specimens and from a letter Edward wrote to Dale,he mentioned that he knew very little about the science of entomology.  

After the middle of the 1830's because of John Quekett's work at the London Hospital and later when he was appointment to the Hunterian Museum he wrote to Dale that he had now little time for entomology. Even to Dale, he was apologizing for the long delay, often months, in his reply to his letters.

John Quekett's diaries do not begin until 1840 and these are held by the Royal College of Surgeons. The college's curator accessed the Quekett diaries for Roger Sutton (1993) and it found that he knew the older entomologist John Woodland of Taunton. Also in a letter to Dale, John Quekett mentions the ' Woodlands ' of Taunton. Were the specimens of L. virgaureae and possibly at least some of the L. dispar in the Langport museum presented by John Woodland. This may be a possible source. The Lycaena may have been by collected by Woodland at a earlier date in the Somerset Levels at Langport, before John Quekett was in the field hunting butterflies . Dale had remarked to John Quekett how very much the levels around Langport reminded him of Whittlesea Mere in the fens of Eastern England , which was the main locality for L. dispar.

As has been mentioned, William John Paul stated he knew the specimens well and they were captured before his collecting days. Through John Quekett's  letters, I now know for certain, that he was a friend of the brothers William & Edward Paul and they collected in the field together. The John Quekett letters have shed new light on some of the L. dispar specimens seen in his collection and may have now ruled out John Quekett and almost certainly his brothers as having collected L. dispar at Langport. It must also remembered that John or his brothers made no mention of capturing either L. dispar or L. virgaureae at Langport. John Woodland is the only collector, who in his old age stated, that he had taken both the Lycaena in the Somerset Marshes and whose specimens were saved for prosperity by William Bidgood, the curator of the Taunton museum.

[nomad]

Further notes on the John Quekett correspondence to James Charles Dale.

As the Queketts, judging from the number of views this thread has received appear to be rather popular, I thought I would add some notes after a recent study of John Quekett letters that he sent to the famous entomologist, James Charles Dale of Glanville's Wootton, Dorset and in doing so have found some further interesting historical entomological information.

In a letter dated April 8th, 1837 sent by John Quekett to Dale, he mentions that a Mr Mansfield, a dealer visited him at his home at Langport. Mansfield had a number rarities for exchange or sale that included without doubt specimens of foreign origin. Quekett writes " I got from Mansfield when he was here the other day a pair of Argynnis lathonia, a pair of the Scarce Copper, virgaureae, a Deilphila Galii. In this letter John Quekett told Dale that Mansfield might visit him at Glanville's Wootton. Mansfield offered to purchase all the specimens of a Phycita species, probably spissicella, a Microlepidoptera that John Quekett could capture. Dale was informed by Quekett that the moth swarmed on Aller Hill that year, but he did not tell Mansfield that, in case it was exception to rule.

John Quekett who had very little money at this time, almost certainly must have realized that the specimens he bought from Mansfield, including the Lycaena virgaureae, great rarities in Britain were of foreign origin. The two specimens of L. virgaureae that were seen by William Bidgood in the Hanging Chapel Museum at Langport following the death of Edward Quekett certainly could have been the Mansfield specimens bought by the late John Quekett. Bidgood stated he was told by the Quekett family, Edward's Widow? that the then remaining fragments of the L. virgaureae were locally caught but in view of John Quekett's letter this is perhaps doubtful? In a letter sent to Dale from London in 1845, John Quekett mentioned he was getting a box of duplicates specimens sent from Langport for exchange, so the bulk of his collection remained at on display in the museum.

Mansfield the dealer, I can find no further mention of him in the literature, certainly seems to have been a typically rather shady dealer of the earlier part of the 19th century. In a letter dated December 26th, 1835, John Quekett wrote to J.C. Dale " Mansfield the dealer paid a visit in early September, for some shabby specimens of arion I got a V. antiopa, Apatua iris and a few other rare butterflies and moths. An exquisite sphix convolvuli was 1/6, he requested 4 bad arion but this I refused, which he did not much like, then he said that arion had been taken in great plenty at Bedford but could not tell me by whom and he then said that he had been shown a specimen taken at Roundhill situated a few miles below Taunton, but I could not learn in whose possession that said specimen was in. As an inducement for me to accede to his proposal, he said he would show me something that he had taken in Breech Wood (Aller Hills) which was more valuable than arion, but after this I would not exchange. He promised me a P. daplidice some-time next season when he came again, he said he had a box of them waiting for him at Salisbury".

It is possible that Mansfield also visited John Woodland the Taunton collector known to the Queketts and who if you recall stated to Bidgood in his old age, the several L. dispar and the L. virgaureae specimen, he had by this time neglected, were taken in the marshes near Langport. You might also recall from the articles in this thread that Woodland had some strange things in his collection among his British specimens there was a Parnassius apollo, Polyommatus alexis, two non-native insects and also a V. antiopa and I. lathonia, the last two species being sold by Mansfield to Quekett. We know what was in Woodland collection because Bidgood made an inventory of his butterflies, having saved what remained of the Lycaena (Copper) butterflies. It is a good job he did because Woodland's cabinet along with his butterflies apart from the several L. dispar and the single L. virgaureae that were keep in a separate box, "mysteriously" disappeared from the County Somerset Museum at Taunton.

By chance, shortly after writing the above, I was studying some museum specimens of the extinct British Lycaena dispar, and what data they had. One very large female was intriguing, it had two data labels, one read Mansfield, Birmingham, Cambridgeshire Fens and the other, from John Gray (fl 1839-1869), Hagley, Stourbridge who had them from Mansfield, Birmingham. I believe that Mansfield from Birmingham was the dealer who visited John Quekett trying to secure specimens of Maculinea arion, a great prize in 1835, the Cotswold and Cornish localities yet to be discovered. John Gray who had the dispar specimen and others was an Iron Master and primary a fossil collector who owned the Wenlock limestone quarries at Dudley. He workforce were instructed to bring Gray any fossils they found.



A specimen of the extinct Lycaena dispar dispar bought from Mansfield by John Gray of Hagley, Stourbridge.

In a letter dated, December 2nd, 1836, John Quekett informed Dale that he had been sent a fine specimen of Boloria euphrosyne from his uncle, it certainly was a special aberration which can be seen from the drawing in the letter, the hindwings were almost black. John Quekett informed Dale that he had sent him 12 specimens of M. arion and six specimens of Scoria dealbata = Siona lineata (Black-veined Moth) from Aller Hill to exchange with other Entomologists such as Benley, B. Morris, F.O. Morris, Henderson and others.


Much later in a letter sent in 1855 from London to Dale, John Quekett mentioned his uncle was a Mr Bartlett of Great Bedwyn, a village five miles north of Marlborough in Wiltshire. Barlett who had sent the rare aberration to Quekett in 1836, had given him a list of good butterflies that he had taken in the woods near Bedwyn and in the Forest of Savernake, he had found both Boloria euphrosyne and Boloria selene to be abundant, Argynnis paphia and Argynnis adippe to be common and among the others were Leptidea sinapis and Thecla betulae. Of the Bartlett list, only Argynnis paphia can be seen in that district today, the others are all extinct there!

[albugcatcher]

I have just read this very interesting story, that's some great detective work done there Peter. Have you managed to find any photos of M. arion collected by John Quekett in that time period.

[nomad]

Thank you. I find these early entomologists fascinating. It seems that all of John Quekett's specimens of Maculinea arion at Langport perished in the Hanging Chapel Museum. Considering how many specimens John Quekett exchanged through J.C. Dale of arion from Langport with distinguished entomologists such as the Morris brothers you might have thought some would have survived, however there are none in the BMNH or at Oxford.

There certainly should have been some of John Quekkett's M. arion specimens in the collections of Francis Orpen Morris and the Reverend Henry Burney. Both collections were sold at Stevens Auction Roloms in 1894 and who knows where they ended up.

Many collectors did not add data to their specimens which is another problem in identifying localities. J.C. Dale's Maculinea arion that he collected with John Quekett over 180 years ago did survive and can be seen in this thread.

collector-secret.proboards.com/thread/784/extinct-lepidoptera-rarities-aller-somerset

and here is the most important information I have yet found, more details in the above link, Edward Quekett, John's brother writing to J.C. Dale. It dispels the myth that the Large Blue died out at Langport through over-collecting.

" I hope that, if you have felt inclined to look after Arion once more, you would not have stood upon the ceremony of my first having invited you, I can assure you we shall be glad to see you at any time, and if you still persevere in the search I will do the best to entertain you, this is, if I recollect, about the time the butterfly appears, but I should almost imagine its habitat is changed from the locality where you caught it in former years, for the fields have been ploughed and sown latterly, and now are covered with standing corn."

[exoticimports]

Peter, time to compile a hard book, as alas when the internet crashes your works will be lost.

Chuck

[Paul K]

Mar 28, 2017 12:04:44 GMT exoticimports said:

Peter, time to compile a hard book, as alas when the internet crashes your works will be lost.

Chuck

If internet crashes we all will be lost, back to the bigfoot ages.
Ups! wrong forum-bigfoot 
Paul