William Sharp Macleay

William Sharp Macleay

William Sharp Macleay (born July 30, 1792 in London , † January 26, 1865 in Sydney ) was a British lawyer, zoologist and entomologist .

Life

He was the son of Alexander Macleay (1767-1848), a colonial official in Australia and entomologist (with one of the largest private insect collections at the time), who was the first director of the Australian Museum in Sydney. William Macleay attended Westminster School and studied at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he earned his bachelor's degree and senior optime in 1814 and received his MA in 1818. He then went to Paris as a diplomat, where he was secretary of the committee that dealt with British demands on France after the end of Napoleon's rule. In Paris he was in contact with zoologists such as Georges Cuvier , Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire and Pierre André Latreille . In 1819 he was back in England. In 1825 he became a member of the Spanish-British court for the repeal of the slave trade in Havana and was a judge there until 1836. After retiring in the same year, he returned to England, but in 1839 emigrated to Australia because of the better climate. He lived in Sydney, devoted himself to his garden on the house in Elizabeth Bay he had inherited from his father, and increased his father's insect collection.

In his Horae Entomologicae he proposed a new system of insects, but this did not take hold. He published not only on insects, but also on the systematics of fish, trilobites (Annals of Natural History 1839), tunicates and the anatomy of Cuban birds. He had an interest in philosophical questions of zoology and original ideas for systematics, which, however, found no response except for some naturalist friends (and for example William Kirby ). The ornithologist Alfred Newton described him in the article ornithology of the 9th edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica as a man of real genius, even if he rejected his theories. In Australia he was interested not only in insects but also in the marine fauna around Port Jackson, for which his house on Elizabeth Bay with a sea view was well located.

His house became a meeting place for people interested in natural history in Sydney and his brother George and his cousin William John Macleay (1820-1891), who was also a politician in Sydney, were also interested in zoology. He had broad cultural interests and moved beyond natural history into intellectual circles in Sydney, but after 1860 he increasingly withdrew for health reasons. The ten-year stay in Cuba had particularly affected his health.

In 1821 he became a Fellow of the Linnean Society of London and he was a Fellow of the Royal Society . In 1839 he was President of Section D (Natural History) of the British Association for the Advancement of Science at their meeting in Liverpool. From 1841 to 1862 he was a trustee of the Australian Museum . He was temporarily a member of the National Board of Education in Sydney.

Since he was not married, his brother George inherited. His collection and library came to the University of Sydney (Macleay Museum).

Fonts

• Horæ Entomologicæ, or Essays on Annulose Animals, 2 volumes, London 1819, 1821
• Annulosa Javanica, or an Attempt to illustrate the Natural Affinities and Analogies of the Insects collected in Java by Thomas Horsfield, London 1825
• Illustrations of the Annulosa of South Africa, London 1838
• Remarks on the Identity of certain General Laws, which have been lately observed to regulate the Natural Distribution of Insects and Fungi, Transactions of the Linnean Society, Volume 14, 1825

literature

• George Simonds Boulger:  Macleay, William Sharp . In: Sidney Lee (Ed.): Dictionary of National Biography . Volume 35:  MacCarwell - Maltby. MacMillan & Co, Smith, Elder & Co., New York City / London 1893, pp 206 - 207 (English).

Web links

Commons : William Sharp Macleay  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Wikisource: William Sharp Macleay  - Sources and full texts (English)

• David S. Macmillan: Macleay, William Sharp (1792-1865) . In: Douglas Pike (Ed.): Australian Dictionary of Biography . Volume 2. Melbourne University Press, Carlton (Victoria) 1967 (English).
• JFM Clark: Macleay, William Sharp (1792-1865). Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , Oxford University Press, 2004 ( online , accessed October 14, 2016, subscription access)