Eleanor Glanville

Eleanor Glanville[note 1] (born Goodricke; first married name Ashfield; 1654–1709) was an English entomologist and naturalist, specializing in the study of butterflies and moths.

Towards the end of Glanville's life, her estranged husband made attempts to obtain her wealth through intimidation and the circulation of rumours, and she countered this by leaving her properties in trust and willing small legacies to her children.

[2] Eleanor Glanville had been interested in butterfly collecting as a youth,[2] but she began developing a more serious pursuit of this after her marriage with Richard broke down.

[1] She recruited her servants' help in collecting insects, paying well for specimens as long as they were carefully preserved according to instruction and delivered in excellent condition.

[2] She corresponded with other early insect collectors such as John Ray, Adam Buddle, Joseph Dandridge and William Vernon, and became close friends with entomologist James Petiver.

She obtained larvae with the help of apprentice girls, going outdoors to beat hedges and bushes and catch the falling insects with a sheet.

[1] To thwart Richard's plotting, Glanville placed her properties in the hands of trustees and willed the bulk of her wealth to her second cousin, Henry Goodricke, with smaller inheritances left to her four children.

He argued that his mother had been insane at the time of the will's creation, persuaded to bequeath her wealth to Henry Goodricke through the deluded belief that her own children had been changed into fairies.

[1] Witnesses testified that Glanville had displayed strange behaviour such as beating bushes for insect larvae, dressing "like a gypsy," and going outdoors without all the clothing considered proper for a lady,[7]: 5–6  and in 1712 her will was overturned for reasons of perceived insanity, leaving Forest to become owner of Tickenham Court.

[4]: 80 At the University of Lincoln, the Eleanor Glanville Centre operates as a central department for diversity and inclusion work across campus.