William Weekes Fowler

His expertise in this order led to the publication of the first volume of The Coleoptera of the British Islands (1887–1891, 1913) and to his being appointed Secretary of the Royal Entomological Society, a post which he held for ten years, before, in 1901, he was made President.

Fowler wrote the introductory volume and account of the Cicindelidae and Paussidae of The Fauna of British India, Including Ceylon and Burma; a contribution to Wytsman's Genera Insectorum on the Languriidae; the sections on Homopterous insects (except the Cicadidae, Fulgoridae, Coccidae and Aleurodidae) for Godman and Salvin's Biologia Centrali-Americana; and two Catalogues of the British fauna, compiled with A. Matthews in 1883 and with David Sharp in 1893.

"In his small and apparently delicate frame Fowler held a great store of vitality and an apparently inexhaustible appetite for hard work, notwithstanding which he was by no means a hard taskmaster to those under him, and by his invariably cheerful and amiable disposition never failed to win popularity and esteem from his pupils and associates of every kind.

Although possessed of little critical power or gift for origination, he had a taste for the not usually attractive labour of collating and tabulating the records of others' results and a readiness to undertake toil from which other men turned away which led him sometimes into fields for which his qualifications were not apparent.

Realising perhaps that time was not on his side, he established a close contact with the Powers and was thus able to draw extensively on the Doctor's knowledge of our Fauna.