The British Coleoptera was entomologist William Sharp’s (1856-1919) largest work of specimens and catalogues. Unfortunately, the c.20,000 specimens were destroyed during World War 2 when Liverpool World Museum was bombed. The catalogue of this collection survives in three volumes. These downloads are digitised versions detailing some of the specimens kept in the collection along with some personal touches included in the catalogue such as postcards, letters, and drawings. If you would like to know more about this catalogue please see the website linked here.

These catalogues were digitalised by Laura Thompson as part of a student placement in the entomology department at World Museum in 2023.

The download link at the bottom of this page takes you through to a OneDrive folder with 6 large PDFs (each of the three volumes plus an additional materials file for each). Combined size of all PDFs = 909MB

Each volume is also now available to view and download via archive.org:

Catalogue Volume 1:

https://archive.org/details/the-british-coleoptera-volume-1/The%20British%20Coleoptera%20Volume%201/page/n23/mode/2up

Catalogue Volume 2:

The William Sharp British Coleoptera Volume 2 : William Charles Sharp : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Catalogue Volume 3:

The William Sharp British Coleoptera Volume 3 : William Sharp : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

#Coleoptera

#Beetles

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