William Kirby (entomologist) - Institution-founding Activities

Institution-founding Activities

In 1815, Kirby took his MA with the intention of applying for the Professorship of Botany at the University of Cambridge when it should become vacant. A dispute arose as to whether this appointment lay in the grant of the Senate or the Crown. Kirby's Tory political complexion proved a stumbling-block, and in the event John Stevens Henslow was appointed.

In 1827, Kirby assisted Mr Denny in arranging the natural history specimens at Norwich Museum. In 1832, he helped to establish an early museum in Ipswich under the aegis of the town's Literary Institute, and presented a herbarium and a group of fossils. With Spence, he helped to found the Entomological Society of London in 1833, with John Westwood as Secretary, and became its Honorary President for life. On that occasion, he presented his own cabinet of insects, collected over more than 40 years, which contained many of the specimens figured in his papers.

Kirby was the original President of the Ipswich Museum, 1847–50, fulfilling a project which he had advocated since 1791, and appeared with William Buckland and others at the opening ceremony. The attached lithograph by T.H. Maguire was copied from the oil portrait by F.H. Bischoff commissioned for and still displayed in the Museum. Professor Henslow succeeded him in this office.