Leicestershire entomology reaches the end of (another) era

Yesterday was a sad day for me personally, but from a wider perspective...

After 38 years, Leicestershire and Rutland Entomological Society (LRES) has scaled back operations due to falling participation and an elderly demographic. It's not completely gone, and the intention is that arrangements will be made for publications to continue (the plan is that the Natural History Section of the Leicester Lit & Phil Society will pick up the remaining activity of LRES, notably publications), but there won't be any more dedicated entomology meetings. We're not, of course, the first or the only society this has happened to. 

A VC55 entomology society has blinked into and out of existence and number of times, first as an offshoot of the Zoology Section of Leicester Literary and Philosophical Society. In the second half of the 19th century Leicester was an entomological powerhouse. Before a dedicated society existed, entomology in the region was driven by the "Lit & Phil", founded in 1835. Perhaps the most famous name associated with this is Henry Walter Bates, the Leicester lad and explorer who discovered "Batesian mimicry." In the momentous year 1844–1845, a young Alfred Russel Wallace moved to Leicester to take up a position as a master at the Collegiate School, teaching drafting, surveying, and English. While he was already interested in nature, he hadn't yet found his specific calling. Everything changed in Leicester. Here, Wallace met Bates, a local man who worked in his family’s hosiery business but spent every spare second obsessed with entomology, spending his limited free time collecting beetles in Bradgate Park and Charnwood Forest. Their friendship quickly turned into a professional partnership. By 1847, Wallace was bored with teaching and proposed a radical plan: they should travel to the Amazon rainforest to collect specimens and sell them to museums and collectors back in London. They left for Pará (now Belém), Brazil, in 1848. While they eventually split up to cover more ground, their time in Leicester remained the foundation of their careers. Frederick Bates, younger brother of Henry Walter Bates, began publishing in the Transactions of the Leicester Literary and Philosophical Society from the 1850s. In the late 19th century, figures like William Armston Vice and Frank Bouskell pushed for a specialized entomological section. For a time, a "Leicester Entomological Club" operated within the Lit & Phil, eventually evolving into Section F (Entomology) by the 1880s, producing the first comprehensive local checklists for the Victoria County History (1907). The Entomology Section ceased to operate during the 1939-45 World War and was not restarted after the War. 

 The Great Hiatus and the 1988 Rebirth

Following the 1939-45 World War, there was no formal entomology society. Naturalists of all shades typically met at the Leicester Museum, which acted as a de facto hub. Notable Leicestershire entomologists tended to interact directly with national entomology organizations. The modern society was born from a desire for a more focused, member-driven group when on June 8th 1988, a meeting was held at the University of Leicester to discuss forming a society. On September 5, 1988, the Leicestershire Entomological Society (LES) held its first official meeting at the New Walk Museum. A small number of founder members still remain. The society has always covered Watsonian Vice-County 55 (VC55), which encompasses both Leicestershire and Rutland. To formally recognize this, the society officially rebranded as the Leicestershire & Rutland Entomological Society (LRES) in 2022.

And now, it's over again - for now. Perhaps the "Leicestershire Entomological Club" will naturally re-emerge. Whether we blame Covid, social media, or Margaret "there is no such thing as society" Thatcher, I'm not happy this has happened on my watch, but the cyclic nature of Leicestershire entomology allows me to take comfort in the philosophy of Heraclitus - 

No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.