Edward Arthur Butler

Lieutenant-Colonel Edward Arthur Butler (4 July 1843 – 16 April 1916) was an English ornithologist and British Army officer. He is commemorated in the scientific specific name for the Omani owl, Strix butleri.

Butler was born at Coton House, Churchover, Warwickshire and studied at Eton. He joined the army at the age of 21, and served in Gibraltar, India and South Africa with the 83rd (County of Dublin) Regiment of Foot. He retired in 1884 as a lieutenant-colonel in the Royal Irish Rifles.

He married Clara Francis Butler in 1872 and had three sons, Charles Edward, Harry Francis, and Arthur Lennox.^[1] His son Arthur Lennox Butler was also an ornithologist, and had four species of reptiles named in his honor, including the Australian venomous snake, Chilorhinophis butleri.^[2]

Butler was a keen bird collector and taxidermist. His collections were acquired by the Natural History Museum in part directly and also through the collections of Allan Octavian Hume, Lord Rothschild and others.^[3]

Butler was found dead in his garden at Winsford Hall Stokesby nr Great Yarmouth 16 April 1916. A coroners court held at Winsford Hall returned a verdict of “Suicide during temporary insanity”, Butler was 72 years old.

References

^ "Edward Arthur Butler". Ibis. 58 (4): 644–645. 1916. doi:10.1111/j.1474-919X.1916.tb07954.x.
^ Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. ISBN 978-1-4214-0135-5. ("Butler, A. L.", p. 44).
^ Warr, Frances E. (1997). Manuscripts and Drawings in the Ornithology and Rothschild Libraries of The Natural History Museum at Tring. London: British Ornithologists' Club. 100 pp. ISBN 978-0952288619.