British Museum (Natural History): Department of Entomology: Economic Section: Correspondence...

This series contains in-coming and out-going correspondence, reports and other notes relating to insects of economic importance.

F V Theobald's papers are in the Entomology Library.

Access conditions: Subject to 30 year closure unless otherwise stated

Economic entomology was of little concern to the Museum until about 1900, when the importance of the Diptera in transmission of disease was first established. An unofficial worker, Frederick Vincent Theobald (1868-1930), undertook most of the enquiries in this area, publishing two reports on economic zoology for the Museum in 1903 and 1904. Ernest Edward Austen (1867-1938), head of the Diptera collections, was also much concerned with economic work, and was author of the first of the Museum's Economic Leaflets in 1913. The volume of economic work increased so much that an unofficial worker, Professor Maxwell Lefroy, was engaged to deal with enquiries from 1911 until 1914, when Frederick Laing was appointed Assistant in charge of economic enquiries. Laing was joined by Alfred Weston McKenny Hughes in 1931. By this time it was evident that the Museum's tiny staff was inadequate to deal with such a huge area, and that in any case there were other government organisations with overlapping interests. It was therefore decided in 1933 to restrict the Department's activities to 'domestic' areas, and to disband the economic collection and redistribute it among the specialist sections. The post of economic entomologist lapsed after the retirement of Hughes in 1955.