Henry Walter Bates - Home at Last

Home At Last

In 1861 he married Sarah Ann Mason. From 1864 onwards, he worked as Assistant Secretary of the Royal Geographical Society (effectively, he was the Secretary, since the senior post was occupied by a noble figurehead). He sold his personal Lepidoptera collection to Godman and Salvin and began to work mostly on beetles (cerambycids, carabids, and cicindelids). From 1868-9 and 1878 he was President of the Entomological Society of London. In 1871 he was elected a Fellow of the Linnaean Society, and in 1881 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.

He died of bronchitis in 1892 (in modern terms, that may mean emphysema). A large part of his collections are in the Natural History Museum (see The Field, London, February 20, 1892). Specimens he collected went to the Natural History Museum and to private collectors; yet Bates still retained a huge reference collection and was often consulted on difficult identifications. This, and the disposal of the collection after his death, are mentioned in Edward Clodd Memories.