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{{Short description|British Indian army officer}}

'''John William Yerbury''' (30 March 1847 – 10 November 1927) was a British Indian army officer and a naturalist. He collected birds, insects, reptiles, and mollusc specimens which were sent to the British Museum (Natural History) during his service across British India with numerous species described from his collections and several named after him.

== Life and work ==
Yerbury was born near [[Saharanpur]], [[Ambala district|Ambala]], where his namesake father Major Yerbury (1804-1858), posted with the [[3rd The King's Own Hussars|3rd Light Dragoons]], was travelling. His mother Emma nee Webb, was travelling on elephant back at the time of his birth according to a family story. The family returned to England around 1854 and lived at Belcombe Court in [[Bradford-on-Avon]]. After the death of his father, Yerbury went to [[Wellington College, Berkshire|Wellington College]] and in 1862 to Dr William Bridgman's Woolwich Common school. He enrolled at the [[Royal Military Academy, Woolwich|Royal Military Academy]] in 1865 and was a posted Lieutenant in the [[Royal Artillery]] in 1868. He served in India and Yemen, with his last years of service spent in Sri Lanka. In his spare time he studied natural history, collecting specimens and sending them to specialists. He did not have a private collection, but sent nearly all his specimens to the British Museum. He retired as a Lieutenant Colonel in 1892 and returned to England. He made a long sea trip in 1887 from India to England and made yet another trip to Aden in 1895. He lived in London and gave his mailing address as the [[Army and Navy Club]] in [[Pall Mall, London|Pall Mall]]. He continued his natural history collections in Britain and Europe until around 1914, after the death of his friend Dora Isaac and of his friend and cousin [[John Henry Wood]]. He was a member of the [[Royal Entomological Society|Entomological Society]] from 1888. His eyesight began to fail from around 1910 and this may have contributed to an accident in which he was hit by a taxi leading to injuries and a premature death. Yerbury exonerated the driver of the cab.<ref>{{cite journal|journal=Dipterists Digest |volume=21| year=2014|title=Dr John Henry Wood and Colonel John William Yerbury - their different lives as dipterists|author=Chandler, Peter J.|url=https://dipterists.org.uk/sites/default/files/pdf/Dipterists%20Digest%202014%20Vol%2021%20Supplement.pdf|pages=1–118}}</ref>

He collected across taxa.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Yerbury |first1=Major J. W. |last2=Sharpe |first2=R. Bowdler |date=1886 |title=On the Birds of Aden and the Neighbourhood. |url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1474-919X.1886.tb06263.x |journal=Ibis |language=en |volume=28 |issue=1 |pages=11–24 |doi=10.1111/j.1474-919X.1886.tb06263.x}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |author=Butler, Arthur G. |year=1884 |title=On a collection of Lepidoptera made by Major J. W. Yerbury at or near Aden |url=https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/30826838 |journal=Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London |pages=478–503}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|title= Notes on some Syrphidae collected near Aden by Colonel J. W. Yerbury in February and March, 1895| author=Verrall, George Henry|pages=413–422| journal=Transactions of the Entomological Society of London| year=1898|url=https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/12114046}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Yerbury |first=Colonel J. W. |date=1919 |title=Seashore Diptera |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0025315400059944/type/journal_article |journal=Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom |language=en |volume=12 |issue=1 |pages=141–145 |doi=10.1017/S0025315400059944 |s2cid=250947372 |issn=0025-3154}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |author=Yerbury, J.W. |year=1902 |title=A list of the Diptera met with in Cork and Kerry during the summer of 1901 (with some notes on their habits, etc.) |url=https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/3119579 |journal=The Irish Naturalist |volume=11 |pages=74–93}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |author=Butler, A.G. |year=1888 |title=An account of three series of Lepidoptera collected in North-west India by Major Yerbury |url=https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/26195191 |journal=The Annals and Magazine of Natural History |series=6 |volume=1 |issue=3 |pages=196–209|doi=10.1080/00222938809460708 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |author=Yerbury, J. W. |year=1900 |title=An appeal for assistance in collecting Gad flies, Bot flies and Warble flies. |url=https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/30169182 |journal=Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society |volume=13 |issue=4 |pages=683–686}}</ref> Most of his collections are now in the [[Natural History Museum, London|Natural History Museum in London]]. From the [[Mollusca|mollusc]]s that he collected, several were described as new and named after him by E. A. Smith in 1891 including ''Cerithium yerburyi'', ''Strombus yerburyi'', ''Ischnochiton yerburyi'', and ''Cytherea yerburyi''.

== References ==
{{reflist}}

== External links ==
* [https://www.coleoptera.org.uk/node/23681 Beetle collectors]

{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Yerbury, John William}}
[[Category:1847 births]]
[[Category:1927 deaths]]
[[Category:British Indian Army officers]]
[[Category:British naturalists]]
[[Category:Natural history collectors]]
[[Category:British ornithologists]]
[[Category:British entomologists]]
[[Category:British herpetologists]]
[[Category:British malacologists]]

John William Yerbury - Revision history

Ajay Kumar: Created a new article