- Simon Wilkin
Simon Wilkin (27th July 1790,
Costessey –1862,London ) was an Englishpublisher literary scholar andnaturalist whose main interest wasentomology .He was the second of the three children of William Wilkin Wilkin (1762–1799), a Norfolk gristmiller, and Cecilia Lucy Wilkin (d. 1796), daughter of
William Jacomb of London. When his father died Wilkin moved toNorwich to live with his guardian,Joseph Kinghorn , who educated him. He was a close friend of John Curtis, William Kirby , John Burrell andWilliam Spence who shared his interest in entomology.Wilkin lost his inherited wealth in 1811 when the
paper mill in which he was a partner failed, and in 1832 his guardian's death was another financial disaster.Bankruptcy forced the sale of his insect collection to theZoological Society of London . He was then able to establish a printing and publishing business in Norwich. He published the work ofHarriet Martineau ,Amelia Opie ,George Borrow , andWilliam Taylor . In 1825 he married Emma, daughter of John Culley of Costessey, and they had two daughters and a son and in 1834 they moved to London.Wilkin compiled an edition of
Sir Thomas Browne (1836; reissued in 1852) for which he researched Browne's correspondence in theBritish Museum andBodleian Library .He was a
Fellow of theLinnean Society , and a member of theWernerian Society of EdinburghReferences
*Gage, A. and Stearn,W., 1988. "A bicentenary history of the Linnean Society of London". London, Academic Press, 1988.
*Jewson, C. B. Jewson, 1979 "Simon Wilkin of Norwich (1979)
*Ordish, G. , 1974 "John Curtis and the pioneering of pest control". Reading, Osprey.
*"Oxford Dictionary of National Biography" Oxford University Press, 2004
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