1919.] 263 



(ibituariT. 



Through the death of Willinyn E. Sharp, wliich took place suddenly at 

 Crowthorne, Berks, on May 20Lh, we have lost one of the best of our JBritiah 

 Coleopterists. Sharp was born at Sparkbrook, near Birmingham, in 1856; 

 when he was three years old, his father engaged in business in Liverpool, and 

 the family removed to Oxton. Cheshire ; subsequently he went to Birkenhead 

 School, where he received a prize from the hands of Cliarles Kingsley, for 

 whom he always had a great respect ; from an early age he showed a taste 

 for natural history — this and an urtistic temperament he inherited from his 

 mother. Dr. Pearce, the headmaster of Birkenhead School, was very anxious 

 that he should go to Oxford or Cambridge, but he was prevented through lack 

 of means, and joined his fatiier's business. In 1883 he married Miss Katherine 

 Green of Ledsham. For many years he was a member of the Lancashire and 

 Cheshire Entomological Society, and in 1906 he published his valuable list of 

 the Coleoptera of Lancashire and Cheshire. In 1899 he took up work in 

 London and joined the Entomological Society, and made many friends. His 

 health, however, broke down, and a few years ago he retired to Crowtliorne. 

 The district round Crowthorne, often known as the " Wellington College 

 district" (the College being situated in the parish of Crowthorne), is one of 

 the best collecting grounds in England, and the country with its undulating 

 sweep of pine woods stretching for miles towards Hampshire and Surrey was 

 a source of perpetual delight to him, both from an artistic (he made many 

 water-colour sketches) and natural history point of view. The chief publica- 

 tion written by Mr. Sharp was a volume entitled " Common Beetles of the 

 Country Side," an excellent piece of work, showing both great accuracy and 

 considerable literary ability. He had a strong sense of the beautiful, and some 

 of his descriptions of localities have a true poetic ring about them. We have 

 already mentioned his Catalogue of Lancashire and Cheshire Coleoptera, and 

 he was a valued contributor to the " Entomologist's Monthly Magazine"': two 

 of his last contributions were on the Coleoptera of the Crowthorne district, and 

 the habits of Melanuphila acuminata, the " Fire-beetle," which appeared in 

 great numbers in 1918 in places where the pine woods were being cut down and 

 the stumps and refuse burnt. 



The subject of our memoir was one of the kindest and most amiable of 

 men ; he was most generous and always ready to show his localities to any 

 Coleopterist wlio desirtd information : one could not imagine his quarrelling 

 with anyone for his one desire was to help. He had had great troubles through- 

 out his life and met them all bravely, but there is no doubt that the death of his 

 sun in 1916 (he Wiis shot by a sniper in France) did much finally to break his 

 health. We will conclude with the following quotation from a letter from a 

 Coleopterist well-known to most of us and who really ought to have written 

 this notice ; after speaking of his great ability as a Coleopterist and his lovable 

 character, he continues : — " I have known him now for nearly a quarter of a 

 century, have kept up regular and close correspondence with him, and have 

 explored many parts of the kingdom in his company, and I can safely say that 

 I have never had a better friend, and have never met a man whom I esteemed 

 so warmly as Sharp." His collection of beetles has been purchased by the 

 Liverpool Public Museum. — \V. \V, F, 



