William Elford Leach

They lived in Italy and (briefly) Malta and he died from cholera in San Sebastiano Curone, near Tortona, north of Genoa on 25 August 1836.

"[5] Despite his expertise in particular animal groups, Leach's greatest contribution was his almost single-handed modernisation of the whole of British zoology following its stagnation during the long war with post-revolutionary and Napoleonic France.

He therefore grouped butterflies with lobsters, scorpions, spiders and centipedes but these animals are not otherwise similar in appearance, do not live in the same environment, and do not behave in the same way.

[b] By applying the natural method in these works he created more than 380 new genera, many of which have stood the test of time and remain valid today.

In 1834, at the annual meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, Leonard Jenyns reported on The Recent Progress and Present State of Zoology.

Discussing the science in the years before 1817 he noted the advances made on the Continent, then continued, 'England, we fear, has but little to produce as the result of her labours in zoology during the same period.

There was a general repugnance to everything that appeared like an innovation on the system of Linnaeus; and for many years ... zoology, which was making rapid strides in France and other parts of the Continent, remained in this country nearly stationary.

It is mainly to Dr Leach that we are indebted for having opened the eyes of English zoologists to the importance of those principles which had long guided the French naturalists.

Whilst he greatly contributed to the advancement of the natural system by his own researches, he gave a turn to those of others, and made the first step towards weaning his countrymen from the school they had so long adhered to.

During their interviews the MPs had received confirmation from John Edward Gray that it was Leach who, "was the first to make the English acquainted, by his works and by his improved manner of arranging the collections of the Museum, with the progress that had been made in natural science on the Continent.

Edward Griffiths (translator of George Cuvier's Le Règne Animal) told the inquiry that in Britain, before Leach's work, "zoology was utterly neglected; 20 years ago it was anything but popular; certainly there were very few amateurs that paid much attention to it."