WCP4632

Haliday, Alexander Henry (1806-1870). Irish entomologist.

Anon. 1870. Alexander Henry Haliday. Entomologist's Monthly Magazine. 7(76): 91.

Wallace gave the Presidential Address at the meeting of the Royal Entomological Society of London on 23 January 1871. He shared about Haliday's career and passing but did not list any notable works: 'Our own country has also lost an entomologist of the first rank during the past year, — Alexander Henry Haliday, who for more than forty years devoted himself to the study of the Diptera, Chalcididae, Thysanoptera, and other obscure and difficult groups of insects. He is therefore little known to the majority of entomologists who study Coleoptera or Lepidoptera exclusively, but is highly esteemed by all who are acquainted with his labours. One of his oldest friends, Professor Westwood, has kindly furnished me with the following note on his scientific character: — "He was our first entomologist. His ideas of classification and tabulation were so logical, his latinity so classical, and his knowledge of whatever he touched so masterly, that I fear we shall be long before we look upon his like again." Mr. Haliday was a native of Belfast, and passed most of his life in Ireland. During his latter years he lived in Italy on account of ill-health, and died at Lucca on the 12th of last July, at the age of sixty-three' (Wallace, A. R. 1871. The President's Address. Transactions of the Entomological Society of London. 18: xliv-lxix, on xlvii).