Thomas Workman

From Freepedia

Thomas Workman (1844 - 1900) was an Irish entomologist and arachnologist who travelled widely collecting butterflies and studying spiders . He is best known for his book Malaysian Spiders, published in 1896 in which he described many new species .

Contents 1 Biography 2 Travel 3 Societies 4 Achievements 5 Contacts 6 Spiders named after Workman 7 Published Work 8 Collections 9 Correspondence 10 References

Biography

Thomas Workman was born at Ceara, Belfast, Ireland in 1844 into a wealthy family involved in commerce. He became a successful businessman, at first in the linen trade and then in ship-building. He co-founded Workman Clark and Co., Shipbuilders, Belfast in 1875.

Travel

In the years 1869 and 1870 Workman travelled in North America spending his time mainly in the West, much with native tribes. His trip journals and accounts of the natural history of the American plains and Native Americans are now in the Public Records Office in Belfast. His collection of North American indian artefacts is in the Ulster Museum. Each year when business and family permitted Workman spent lengthy periods in foreign lands, collecting insects, especially butterflies and spiders.

His most significant trips were

• 1881 -Brazil
• 1883 -India, Burma, Singapore, China and the Philippines
• 1888 - Singapore and Ceylon
• 1890- Singapore and Java
• 1892- Ceylon, Singapore and India

Societies

Workman was, as well as being actively involved in the civic administration of Belfast,the Honorary Librarian of the Belfast Natural History and Philosophical Society becoming president in 1898. He died in St. Paul, Minnesota, U.S.A in 1900, having caught a chill en route from Vancouver following a trip to the Rocky Mountains.

Achievements

Aside from his work on spiders ,especially those of the Far East, Workman was a considerable lepidopterist collecting for Adelbert Seitz and Lionel Walter Rothschildamong others. Some of his specimens are figured and noted without attribution in Seitz' monumental Macrolepidoptera of the World.A sytematic description of the hitherto known Macrolepidoptera, edited in collaboration with well known specialists published in Stuttgart by Alfred Kermen.

Contacts

• Octavius Pickard-Cambridge (1828-1917) England
• Theodore Savory ( ) England
• Tord Tamerlan Teodor Thorell (1830-1901) Sweden
• Adelbert Seitz (1860-1938) Germany
• Lionel Walter Rothschild ( (1868-1937) England

Spiders named after Workman

• Damarchus workmanii Thorell
• Theridium workmanii Thorell
• Phidippus workmanii Peckham & Peckham
• Goleta workmanii Peckham & Peckham

Published Work

1880 Irish Spiders in The Entomologist 1896 Malaysian Spiders Volume 1 Privately published in Belfast.

Collections

• Campbell College, Belfast: Lepidoptera
• Ulster Museum, Belfast: Lepidoptera
• National Museum of Ireland, Dublin Irish spiders: Lepidoptera
• Natural History Museum, London World spiders: Lepidoptera

Correspondence

Public records Office,Belfast

References

• Irish Naturalist 9:241
• Belfast Natural History and Philosophical Society Centenial Volume 1821-1891

144, portrait.