Thomas Henry Allis Explained

Birth Date:15 January 1817
Death Place:York
Occupation:Entomologist

Thomas Henry Allis (15 January 1817 – 1 August 1870) was a British entomologist specialising in Lepidoptera.

Biography

Allis was the son of Thomas Allis, a comparative anatomist at York. He attended Friend's School.

As an entomologist Allis was a member of the Entomological Society of London and the Entomological Society of Stettin.[1] He amassed a large collection of lepidoptera, which was donation by his father to the Yorkshire Philosophical Society.[2] The collection contained 19,585 specimens of 1,873 species of butterfly and moth. The collection is one of the largest biological collections in the Yorkshire Museum.[3] The collection was used as the basis of an exhibition at Shandy Hall in 2005 titled 'The Winged Skull and 8000 other moths'.[4] Allis had also donated specimens, in 1854, to the Entomological Society of London.[5]

A species of moth, Exaeretia allisella, is named after Allis. He had caught the original specimens near Rotherham and Maryport and sent them to H.T. Stainton for his revision of the genus Exaeretia.[6]

Allis' grave is in the Friend's Burial Ground, York.[7]

Select publications

Notes and References

  1. Obituary: Thomas Henry Allis . Entomologist's Monthly Magazine . September 1870 . 76 . 90–91.
  2. Annual Report of the Council of the Yorkshire Philosophical Society for 1870 . February 1871 . Yorkshire Philosophical Society.
  3. . 1968 . A List of Botanical and Zoological Collections at the Yorkshire Museum, York . The Naturalist . 904 . 85–89.
  4. Web site: Exhibitions: The Winged Skull and 8000 Other Moths . The Lawrence Sterne Trust . 24 November 2021.
  5. Additions to the Collections . Transactions of the Entomological Society of London . xvi . 3.
  6. Stainton, H. T. . 1849 . On the Species of Depressaria, a Genus of Tineidae, and the allied Genera Orthotaelia and Exaeretia . The Transactions of the Entomological Society of London . 5 . 151–173.
  7. Web site: Thomas Henry Allis . findagrave.com . 24 November 2021.