Robert Newstead, 1859-1947

Abstract

Robert Newstead was born at Swanton Abbott, Norfolk, on 11 September 1859, the first of a family of eleven. His father was butler to Squire Boulton of Oulton Hall, but later moved to Sedgeford where he was employed as a gardener. From him Newstead got his love of plants and animals and his interest in natural history for, together, he and his father collected natural history specimens in the Fen Country, in Gloucestershire, and later in Cheshire. This last county became his adopted one and was the scene of his life’s work. Leaving school when ten years old, Newstead first worked as a labouring gardener, then worked for a time in a printing works, and later as a telegraphist, but, in 1883, returned to gardening in the employment of Mr Osten Walker, a keen amateur naturalist. Walker’s influence on Newstead’s career was decisive. In the first place he provided Newstead for the first time in his life with accommodation and facilities for his natural history studies, he advised him to apply for the Curatorship of the Grosvenor Museum, Chester, just then established, and was instrumental in his getting it. Later still, he induced Newstead to take up the study of the Coccidae or scale insects, and Newstead’s work in this group first established his reputation as an entomologist. In 1900, he was invited by the Ray Society to prepare a monograph on the British Coccidae. In this he was encouraged by the late Sir Edward Poulton, who secured for him a grant of £20 from the Royal Society to enable him to visit various localities in search of material. In 1902 he had the honour of being made an Associate of the Linnaean Society. During these years Newstead had made the acquaintance of Eleanor Omerod who followed John Curtis as one of the pioneers of agricultural entomology. For some years Newstead acted as her assistant and compiled the indices for her annual reports on injurious insects. This gave him his first interest in applied entomology.