William Denison Roebuck, (5 January 1851 – 15 February 1919) was an English Naturalist, collector and writer, specialising in Malacology, Conchology and Limacology. He was one of the founding members and secretary of the Yorkshire Union of Naturalists, and the editor of its journal The Naturalist.
Early life William Denison Roebuck was born in Leeds on 5 January 1851, and resided there until seventeen years of age, when his parents removed their summer residence to Pannal, a village near Harrogate, and during his summer residences there in 1868 and succeeding years, he commenced the active collection, study and registry of the Butterflies and other insects met with, encouraged by the possession and perusal of Coleman's British Butterflies. His observations upon the Bees and allied groups made at this period were placed on record in the Victoria County Histories.
Career
Entomology Although not professing to be an Entomologist, Roebuck was always interested in that science, and was rarely absent from a meeting of the Entomological Section of the Yorkshire Naturalists’ Union. In his earlier days he had done excellent work in the science, including a paper entitled 'Locusts in Yorkshire', which appeared in The Naturalist in 1877. The title does not indicate the scope of that paper, which was in reality a history of all the known locust flights throughout Britain from the years 1842 to 1876, and was at the time of his death the most comprehensive and exhaustive account of that subject. Then at one time he was greatly interested in Hymenoptera, and was largely responsible for the list of that group of insects in the Victoria History of Yorkshire, as he was also for the entire Entomological chapters in the Victoria Histories of some of the other Northern Counties of England. For very many years he had kept records, with references, of all the papers and notes referring to all orders of insects (when he could do so, cutting out and keeping the papers or notes themselves) published in the various journals, referring to Yorkshire and other North of England Counties, and so was in possession of a vast store of information which was always available to any responsible author writing on any particular subject connected with Entomology. His help to the science in this way was considerable. He was positively associated with the Yorkshire Naturalists' Union, The Conchological Society, the Leeds Naturalists' Field Club, the Leeds Conchological Club, the Leeds Philatelic Society, and other groups.
Learned societies
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