George Hamilton Kenrick

Sir George Hamilton Kenrick (born January 29, 1850 in Edgbaston , West Midlands , † May 28, 1939 there ) was a British butterfly scientist . He was the uncle of British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain (1869–1940).

life and work

Kenrick was the son of Timothy Kenrick from Edgbaston and the grandson of Archibald Kenrick, founder of the metalware company Archibald Kenrick & Sons in West Bromwich . After training in Brighton and at University College London , he worked for two years as an engineer at Nettlefolds in Smethwick , where his brother-in-law Joseph Chamberlain was director. He then joined his father's company, where he was chairman for many years. Aside from his professional career, Kenrick was involved in elementary and higher education policy. At the age of 30 he became a member of the Birmingham School Board. From 1908 to 1909 he was Lord Mayor (Lord Mayor) of Birmingham. He was also a city councilor in Birmingham.

At the beginning of the 20th century, Kenrick began writing about tropical butterflies. He sent the naturalist Antwerp Edgar Pratt (1850-1924) and his two sons Carl Brenders Pratt and Felix Biet Pratt from 1902 to 1903 to British New Guinea and from 1909 to 1910 to the Arfak Mountains in Dutch New Guinea. Both expeditions, during which hundreds of new butterfly species (including the bird butterfly Ornithoptera rothschildi ) were discovered, were very successful. In the 1930s, Kenrick sold his entire butterfly collection to the Birmingham Natural History Museum .

Kenrick was a Fellow of the Royal Entomological Society and in 1909 he was promoted to Knight Bachelor by King Edward VII .

Dedication names

Several butterfly taxa are named after Kenrick, including Delias kenricki , Belciana kenricki , Ophiusa kenricki , Endocrossis kenricki and Ornithoptera rothschildi kenricki .

Works (selection)

• A list of moths of the family Pyralidae collected by AE Pratt in British New Guinea in 1902–3, with descriptions of new species. Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London 1907: p. 68-87
• Some Undescribed Butterflies from Dutch New Guinea, 1911
• A list of moths of the family Pyralidae collected by Felix B. Pratt and Charles B. Pratt in Dutch New Guinea in 1909-1910; with descriptions of new species, Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London 1912: S. 505-913
• New and little known Heterocera of Madagascar (1913 and 1917)

literature

• George Thomas Bethune-Baker: Obituary George Hamilton Kenrick . In: Entomologist's Record & Journal of Variation . tape 51 , 1939, pp. 116 ( online [accessed November 2, 2011]).