William Kirby (1759-1850): eminent Suffolk naturalist

WILLIAM KIRBY (1759–1850)

87

WILLIAM KIRBY (1759–1850): EMINENT SUFFOLK NATURALIST Patrick H. Armstrong The year 2015 was the 200th anniversary of the publication of the first volume of Introduction to Entomology, and 2016 will be the 190th anniversary of the appearance of the fourth and final volume of the series. This publication was a milestone in the development of entomology, and a significant event in the story of natural history in Suffolk, and thus these anniversaries perhaps render a man who has been described as ‘The Father of Entomology’ worthy of the notice of a modern audience.

The Reverend William Kirby (Fig. 1) came from a modestly distinguished family. His grandfather was John Kirby (1690–1753), cartographer and author of The Suffolk Traveller, based on a survey conducted between 1732 and 1734, and his uncle the artist-topographer Joshua Kirby (1716–1774). A cousin was Mrs Sarah Trimmer (1741 –1810), philanthropist, educator and children’s author. William Kirby’s father was a country solicitor. The family knew Thomas Gainsborough, the painter (Bettany, 1892; Freeman, 1852).

In many respects Kirby typifies the phenomenon of the English parson-naturalist (Armstrong, 2000). Born in the Suffolk parish of Witnesham, after attending Ipswich School, not far distant, he proceeded to Caius College, Cambridge, graduating in 1781.

He was ordained in 1782, and spent the rest of his life – some 68 years – living in the country parish of Barham (Fig. 2), Suffolk (about 2.5 miles, 6 km, from his birthplace).

He was at first curate, and then, from 1797, the rector. Such long incumbencies were not unusual: they meant that a man could get to know a small area of countryside, and its plants, animals and people, extremely well. Thus in Kirby’s first major work Monographia Apium Angliae - Monograph on the Bees of England (1802), some 153 of the bee species described were collected in his own parish and a number in adjoining parishes (Freeman, 1852). Other observations from the local Suffolk countryside abound in his works; for example: The carrot, which forms a valuable crop of the sand-land farms in Suffolk, is often much injured, as is also the parsnip by a small centipede (S. electrica L.) and another polypod (Polydesmus complanatus, Latr.) which eat into the …upper part of their roots. (Introduction to Entomology, 1818 edition, vol 1, p 187.)

Kirby’s network One of the reasons for the striking success of the English parson-naturalist genre was the tight network of relationships that the clergy provided for each other. Anglican clergy were often related to one another by kinship or marriage, they met at deanery meetings or other clergy gatherings, and corresponded frequently; in this way parsonnaturalists exchanged specimens and observations.

William Kirby was no exception. In his 1802 book on bees he acknowledges particularly the assistance of the Rev Peter Lathbury of Livermere, Suffolk (p 26) and refers to a specimen of Evania appendigaster in the possession the Rev Jas Coyte of Ipswich (p 34). In another description he mentions his ‘venerable friend’ the Rev George Ashby of Barrow in Suffolk (p 167). Similar acknowledgements are to be found in Introduction to Entomology: he mentions the observation of vast numbers of Trans. Suffolk Nat. Soc. 51 (2015)

88

Suffolk Natural History, Vol. 51

Figure 1. The Rev William Kirby (1759–1850). Lithograph by T H Maguire, 1851.

Trans. Suffolk Nat. Soc. 51 (2015)

WILLIAM KIRBY (1759–1850)

89

Figure 2. Church of St Mary Barham, Suffolk. Photo by Keith Evans, 2009. Licenced under the Creative Commons Attribution Scheme. ladybirds on the sea-coast at Orford, Suffolk, made by ‘My friend the Rev Peter Lathbury’ (vol 2, p 9).

However, despite the restrictions of life in a rural community in East Anglia, Kirby’s life was not an entirely isolated one. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society on 5 March 1818, and must have had considerable, although perhaps intermittent, contact with scientists in the Capital. He refers – often very deferentially - to Sir Joseph Banks, President of the Royal Society. Kirby mentions Sir Joseph’s unrivalled library stored with almost every publication that a naturalist could wish to consult, and his cabinet rich in exotic and indigenous treasures and open to the most unreserved inspection, affords writers of this class, who reside in this country, a most decided advantage over those of any other. (Monographia, vol 1, p xvi.)

The clergy network, and that of the Royal Society, intersected in the Rev Dr Samuel Goodenough (1743–1827), Dean of Rochester, and later Bishop of Carlisle. Dr Goodenough as well as being a distinguished classical scholar was a good botanist, and he compiled a ground-breaking memoir on the genus Carex (1794) which in some ways provided a model for Kirby’s monograph on bees; Kirby also acknowledges the use of Dr Goodenough’s collection of insects. Samuel Goodenough was for some time a vice-president of the Royal Society (of which he became a fellow in 1789) while Sir Joseph Banks was in command. It seems that Kirby, Sir Joseph, and Dr Goodenough knew one another quite well.

Trans. Suffolk Nat. Soc. 51 (2015)

90

Suffolk Natural History, Vol. 51

Both William Kirby and Samuel Goodenough were associated with the founding of the Linnean Society in 1787 and Goodenough was one of the framers of its constitution and the Society’s treasurer during its first year. Both contributed papers to the Society’s Transactions and Kirby mentions using the resources of the Linnean in his work.

Contribution to the development of natural history Kirby provided a systematic approach to the classification of insects in the 1802 Monographia: he clearly set out the characteristics by which he designated genera and species, and provided a clear hierarchical, branching system. To some extent his concept resembled that on which modern identification keys are based. Species were illustrated in line drawings in great detail.

But Kirby was much more than a taxonomist. His greatest achievement was probably An Introduction to Entomology, or Elements of the Natural History of Insects, published in four volumes between 1815 and 1826. He collaborated in this with William Spence (1783–1860), a Yorkshire businessman, although, because of Spence’s state of health, Kirby probably undertook a good deal of the work; they worked together at Barham on several occasions. Spence, however, was responsible for updating and editing the later editions, when Kirby was very elderly and infirm, and after his death: the seventh (1857) and subsequent editions consolidated the first two volumes of the sixth (Freeman 1852).

The book is arranged as a series of letters, somewhat after the manner of Gilbert White’s Natural History of Selborne, although White’s letters are much shorter. This allows the authors to explore themes, rather than provide a catalogue of taxonomic groups. Thus An Introduction was one of the first works to systematically discuss what is now referred to as economic entomology. Letters IV to X have titles such as ‘Direct injuries caused by insects’, ‘Indirect injuries caused by insects’, ‘Direct benefits derived from insects’. In these letters are detailed accounts of the reproductive strategies of the moth species that damage bee colonies, and the parasites of sheep and cattle. The account below rings true to one who has had to deal with termites on his property: [W]hite ants, wherever they prevail … are a great calamity. Where they find their way into houses or warehouses nothing less than metal or glass escapes their ravages. Their favourite food, however is wood of all kinds except the teak (Tectona grandis) and iron-wood (Sideroxylon) which they will not touch; and so infinite are the multitudes, and such is the excellence of their tools that all the timber-work of a spacious apartment is often destroyed in a few nights. Exteriorly, however, every thing appears untouched; for these wary operators … carry on all their operations by sap and mine, destroying first the inside of solid substances, and scarcely ever attacking their outside, until first they have concealed their operations with a coat of clay.

(An Introduction to Entomology [1822 edition], vol 1, letter VIII, p 241.)

In the letters on the ‘beneficial insects’ the producers of cochineal, silk, honey and wax are of course detailed. But the role of some insects in the control of other insect

Trans. Suffolk Nat. Soc. 51 (2015)

WILLIAM KIRBY (1759–1850)

91

pests is also documented. Occasionally ecological relationships are perceived with some insight: [A]ll things endowed with vegetable or animal life should bear certain proportions to each other; and if any individual species exceeds that proportion, from beneficial it becomes noxious, and interferes with the general welfare. It was requisite therefore, for the benefit of the whole system that certain means should be provided, by which hurtful luxuriance might be checked, and all things taught to keep within their proper limits; hence it became necessary that some should prey on upon others… Of the counterchecks thus provided, none act a more important part than insects, particularly in the vegetable kingdom, every plant having its insect enemies.

(An Introduction to Entomology [1822 edition], vol 1, letter IX, p 248.)

The style is somewhat naïve to the modern ear, but the almost Malthusian understanding of population dynamics is perceptive. He later gives the equilibrium that he presumes to exist between ‘ichneumonian parasites’ and the caterpillars of cabbage white butterflies as an example.

Perhaps even more significant is the importance that is attached by Kirby and Spence to the behaviour of insects, and in particular the role of instinct: in this they were ahead of their day. Like others, before and since, they have great difficulty in defining it. The closest they get is the following: [W]e may call the instincts of animals those unknown faculties implanted in their constitution by the Creator, by which, independent of instruction, observation, or experience, and without knowledge of an end in view, they are impelled to a performance of certain actions tending to the well-being of the individual and the preservation of the species.

(An Introduction to Entomology [1818 edition], vol 2, letter XXVII, p 471.)

But they give a multitude of examples, particularly from the behaviour of bees, but also dung beetles and lepidoptera, amongst others.

A single example of the complex behaviour of insects must suffice – Kirby always carefully separates his own observations from those of others, and frequently compares examples from different parts of the world.

[T]he greater number of Linnean Spheges [pararsitoidal wasps] ... after depositing their eggs in cells stored with a supply of food, take no further care of them. Some, however adopt a different procedure. One of these, called by Bonnet the Masonwasp… not only incloses a living caterpillar along with its eggs in the cell, which it carefully closes, but at the expiration of a few days, when the young grub has appeared and has consumed its provision, re-opens the nest, incloses a second caterpillar, and again closes its mouth. A similar mode … is followed by the yellowish wasp of Pennsylvania, described by Bartram…

(An Introduction to Entomology [1818 edition], vol 1, letter XI, p 359.)

Five letters (XVI to XX) are devoted to insect societies. A distinction is made between ‘Perfect societies’ – those of many species of ants, bees, wasps and termites which

Trans. Suffolk Nat. Soc. 51 (2015)

92

Suffolk Natural History, Vol. 51

live in communities all, or most, of the time - and those that are ‘Imperfect’, where insects assemble temporarily. As might be imagined the accounts of the former are extremely detailed and thorough. The latter include Kirby’s own observations of vast clouds of flies, encountered in his travels around East Anglia, and accounts of migrating hordes of locusts in the tropics. As always he mentions instances from other parts of the world: an account of spectacular masses of processing caterpillars in Tasmania is included.

Kirby’s conceptual framework Kirby is firmly in the tradition of natural theology, that of John Ray’s Wisdom of God (1691) and William Paley’s Natural Theology or Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity (1802). This approach stresses the beauty and complexity of nature as evidence for the existence of the Deity. The study of nature is thus a Christian’s duty, so that he may gain insights to the mind of the Creator. The God of Nature is but a reflection of the God of Scripture. Here is Kirby explaining his objectives in the preface to Monograpia.

And here, to trace the footsteps and elucidate the system of nature, and nature’s God, has invariably been his aim. To discover the wonderful works and adore the wisdom of his Creator, his highest pleasure, and to point out his meaning and see things where he has placed them his single desire.

(Monographia, Preface, p vii.)

Kirby thus emphasises a ‘delight in nature’ rather than seeking mechanisms: he describes and rejoices rather than explains. This approach is well illustrated in one of his earlier papers: ‘Description of three new species of Hirudo’ read at the Linnean Society on 7 May 1793. He commences: Being desirous of adding my mite to the treasures of the Linnean Society, I take the liberty of offering a description of three species of Hirudo, which appear to be non-descript [ie not yet scientifically described]. …

The H. alba is a species of singular beauty. Its colour is a delicate white, interrupted by the elegant ramifications of the viscera … These have the appearance of most beautiful fuci.

The first sentence, whether deliberately or not is unclear, with its reference to a ‘mite’ going into ‘treasures’ appears to reflect Mark, 12, verses 41–42 – the story of the widow casting into the Temple’s treasury, ‘two mites, which make a farthing,’ in the New Testament. Such Biblical allusions are not unusual in Kirby’s work. And not every naturalist would include the words ‘singular beauty’, ‘delicate’, and ‘elegant’ in a description of leeches found in the slow-flowing streams of Suffolk!

Later William Kirby was entrusted with the writing of Treatise VII of the Bridgwater Treatises, a series inspired by Paley’s works, and funded from a legacy under the will of the ‘Right Honourable and Reverend Francis Henry, Earl of Bridgewater’, intended to show how nature provided evidence for the existence of a divine creator. Kirby’s title of his two-volume contribution was On the History Habits and Instincts of Animals (1835).

Trans. Suffolk Nat. Soc. 51 (2015)

WILLIAM KIRBY (1759–1850)

93

Kirby often gives several instances of a phenomenon, but usually presents them as isolated anecdotes rather than offering an analytical comparison. Wonder is more important than interpretation.

This ‘delight in nature’ is sometimes associated with the imbuing of non-human organisms with human attributes, and this anthropomorphism appears frequently in Kirby’s works: The cowardly and cruel Mantis, which runs away from an ant, will destroy in abundance helpless flies... (An Introduction to Entomology [1818 edition], vol 1, letter IX, p 275.)

Wasps, though ferocious and cruel towards their fellow-insects are civilised and polished in their intercourse with each other… (An Introduction to Entomology [1818 edition], vol 1, letter XV, p 507.)

There is also a whole letter (XI in volume I) quaintly entitled ‘Affection of insects for their young’.

Kirby’s role in relation to the development of science Kirby’s natural theology, derived from Ray and Paley, represented orthodoxy in the science in the early decades of the nineteenth century, yet he does occasionally quote early evolutionary thinkers such as Erasmus Darwin and Jean-Baptiste Lamarck. He had clearly read the Zoonomia of ‘Dr Darwin’ (as he called Erasmus). The later editions of An Introduction make mention of ‘Mr Darwin’ (i.e. Charles), quoting the first edition of the book that became known as the Voyage of the Beagle. While he included information from these volumes, there is no sign of evolutionary thinking in Kirby’s work. He died in 1850, nine years before On the Origin was published.

Kirby’s anthropomorphism and his intermingling of fragments of theology with the entomology seem strange to the modern reader. Yet in some ways he could be considered quite close to the mainstream in the broad currents of scientific theory.

Charles Darwin initially espoused the natural theology approach and had read Paley’s book while at Cambridge (both Darwin and Paley went to Christ's College, and according to some traditions, occupied the same room). In later life Darwin declared that Paley’s Natural Theology had been of the greatest value to him: the work emphasises, time and again, the nature of adaptations of organisms to their environment and way of life. There were copies of all four volumes of Kirby’s Introduction aboard HMS Beagle, during the 1831–1836 voyage and Darwin used them quite extensively. The emphasis on the behaviour of organisms probably influenced the young Darwin: his Beagle notes are full of references to behaviour of both vertebrates and invertebrates (Armstrong 1993). The link between Kirby and Darwin, in terms of the activities of the ant-lion that Darwin saw in New South Wales has been discussed in these pages (Armstrong 2002). And studies of behaviour and instinct were of course a major component of Charles Darwin’s evolutionary discourse, culminating in his Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals (1872).

Yet William Kirby remained an archetypical Suffolk parson-naturalist, focusing to a considerable extent on the countryside he knew, making use of his network of clerical colleagues, a traditional Tory, yet one who saw his work as a naturalist as an

Trans. Suffolk Nat. Soc. 51 (2015)

94

Suffolk Natural History, Vol. 51

extension of his role as a priest. In some ways he stands alongside an even more famous Suffolk parson-naturalist, John Stevens Henslow (1796–1861) of Hitcham, Darwin’s friend and mentor. Indeed William Kirby was a candidate for the position of Professor of Botany at Cambridge to which Henslow was appointed: it is alleged that Kirby’s politics got in the way. If Kirby had been appointed in his stead the world would have been very different. But Kirby, anxious to bring natural history before a wide public, was the first President of the Ipswich Museum 1847–1850, fulfilling as aspiration he had held since 1791. He was succeeded by Professor Henslow.

References Armstrong, P. H. (1993). An ethologist aboard HMS Beagle. Journal of the History of Behavioural Science 29(4): 339–344.

Armstrong, P. H. (2000). The English Parson-Naturalist: a Companionship between Science and Religion. Gracewing Publishing, Leominster.

Armstrong, P. H. (2002). Antlions: a link between Charles Darwin and an early Suffolk naturalist. Trans. Suffolk Nat. Soc. 38: 81–86.

Bettany, G. T. (1892). Kirby, William. Dictionary of National Biography, 31. Smith, Elder & Company, London, 199–200.

Freeman, J. (1852). Life of the Rev. William Kirby, M.A, F.R.S., F.L.S, etc, Rector of Barham. Longman, Brown, Green & Longmans, London.

Goodenough, S. (1794). Observations on the British Species of Carex. Transactions of the Linnean Society of London 2 (1): 126–211.

Kirby, W. (1794). Descriptions of three new species of Hirudo. Transactions of the Linnean Society of London 2 (1): 316–320.

Kirby, W. (1802). Monographia Apum Angliae. J. Raw, Ipswich.

Kirby, W. (1835). On the Power, Wisdom and Goodness of God as Manifested in the Creation of Animals and in Their History, Habits and Instincts. Pickering, London.

Kirby, W. & Spence, W. (1815–1826). An Introduction to Entomology, or Elements of the Natural History of Insects. Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans & Roberts, London. (Some later editions were used in the preparation of this paper.)

Paley, W. (1802). Natural Theology or Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity. J. Faulder, London.

Ray, J. (1691). The Wisdom of God manifested in the Works of Creation. London.

Bibliographic Note Many of the sources listed above are available online, in some cases in more than one location.

Patrick Armstrong is an Adjunct Professor in the School of Earth and Environment at the University of Western Australia: he has written extensively on both ecology and the history of science. He first birdwatched in East Suffolk at the age of four, in 1946.

Patrick Armstrong School of Earth and Environment, University of Western Australia, Nedlands, 6009, Western Australia

Trans. Suffolk Nat. Soc. 51 (2015)