William Wilson Saunders FRS (4 June 1809 – 13 September 1879) was a British

insurance broker An insurance broker is an intermediary who sells, solicits, or negotiates insurance on behalf of a client for compensation. An insurance broker is distinct from an insurance agent in that a broker typically acts on behalf of a client by negotia ...

, entomologist and botanist. William Wilson Saunders

Saunders was an

underwriter Underwriting (UW) services are provided by some large financial institutions, such as banks, insurance companies and investment houses, whereby they guarantee payment in case of damage or financial loss and accept the financial risk for liabilit ...

Lloyd's of London Lloyd's of London, generally known simply as Lloyd's, is an insurance and reinsurance market located in London, England. Unlike most of its competitors in the industry, it is not an insurance company; rather, Lloyd's is a corporate body gove ...

. He served as president of the Entomological Society from 1841 to 1842 and again from 1856 to 1857, was treasurer of the

Linnean Society of London The Linnean Society of London is a learned society dedicated to the study and dissemination of information concerning natural history, evolution, and taxonomy. It possesses several important biological specimen, manuscript and literature colle ...

from 1861 to 1873 and was a Fellow of the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

from 1853. Saunders who lived at Reigate was also a well known

horticulturalist Horticulture is the branch of agriculture that deals with the art, science, technology, and business of plant cultivation. It includes the cultivation of fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, herbs, sprouts, mushrooms, algae, flowers, seaweeds and no ...

. His entomological interests centred on Lepidoptera and Hymenoptera but his collection contained insects from all orders. Saunder's Diptera collection contained many new species. These were described in a series of papers by Francis Walker entitled ''Insecta Saundersiana''.

"Nearly two thousand of my Coleoptera, and many hundreds of my butterflies, have been already described by various eminent naturalists, British and foreign; but a much larger number remains undescribed. Among those to whom science is most indebted for this laborious work, I must name Mr. F. P. Pascoe, late President of the Entomological Society of London, who had almost completed the classification and description of my large collection of Longicorn beetles (now in his possession), comprising more than a thousand species, of which at least nine hundred were previously undescribed and new to European cabinets. The remaining orders of insects, comprising probably more than two thousand species, are in the collection of Mr. William Wilson Saunders, who has caused the larger portion of them to be described by good entomologists. The Hymenoptera alone amounted to more than nine hundred species, among which were two hundred and eighty different kinds of ants, of which two hundred were new ". Alfred R. Wallace- The Malay Archipelago.

References

* Obit ''Nature'', Volume 20, Number 518, 2 October 1879, 536–537. *

External links

DEI Zalf
Collection details. {{DEFAULTSORT:Saunders, William 1809 births 1879 deaths Hymenopterists English botanists English lepidopterists Fellows of the Royal Society Fellows of the Linnean Society of London Presidents of the Royal Entomological Society