William Dallas

For the Scottish footballer, see William Dallas (footballer).

William Sweetland Dallas FLS
Born	1824
Died	29 May 1890 Burlington House, Piccadilly, London
Occupations	Zoologist Museum curator
Academic work
Institutions	Yorkshire Museum British Museum

William Sweetland Dallas FLS (1824–1890) was a British zoologist and curator. He curated collections at the British Museum and the Yorkshire Philosophical Society, and was editor of the Popular Science Review.

Biography

He was appointed Keeper of the Yorkshire Museum in 1858, at the age of 31 and already married with four children at the time.^[1][2] Dallas was an editor and translator for the Zoological Record, the Annals and Magazine of Natural History and the Popular Science Review. In 1868 he was elected to the post of Assistant Secretary of the Geological Society, resulting in his resignation from the role of Keeper.^[1]

Notably, he translated Facts and Arguments for Darwin by German biologist Fritz Müller and Erasmus Darwin by German biologist Ernst Krause into English.^[3][4] He also translated Karl Theodor Ernst von Siebold's Wahre Parthenogenesis bei Schmetterlingen und Bienen (1856) into English as On a true parthenogenesis in moths and bees^[5] and created the index for Charles Darwin's The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication.

Dallas was elected a member of the Linnean Society in 1849.^[1]

He died at Burlington House, Piccadilly on 29 May 1890 and was buried at West Norwood Cemetery.

Notes

1. Pyrah, B. (1988). "Palaeontological Wealth (1857-1892)". The History of the Yorkshire Museum and its Geological Collections. North Yorkshire County Council. pp. 81–103.
2. "Report of the Council of the Yorkshire Philosophical Society". Yorkshire Philosophical Society Annual Report for 1858. Vol. 1858. 1858. p. 7.
3. Krause, Ernst (1879). Erasmus Darwin; with Preliminary Notice by Charles Darwin. Translated by Dallas, W. S. London: John Murray. Retrieved 9 May 2024 – via Internet Archive.
4. Browne 2002, p. 260
5. "Letter 2017 — Darwin, C. R. to Huxley, T. H., 9 Dec (1856)". Darwin Correspondence Project.

References

• Browne, E. Janet (2002). Charles Darwin: vol. 2 The Power of Place. London: Jonathan Cape. ISBN 0-7126-6837-3.
• West Norwood Cemetery Dickens Connection, Friends of West Norwood Cemetery[1], 1995

External links

• Works by or about William Sweetland Dallas at Wikisource
• Biography on Darwin Correspondence Project
• Works by William Dallas at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about William Dallas at the Internet Archive