George Samouelle was a curator in the British Museum (Natural History)

Natural History Museum

The Natural History Museum is one of three large museums on Exhibition Road, South Kensington, London, England . Its main frontage is on Cromwell Road...

 of "no real scientific aptitude".

Originally employed as a bookseller for Longman & Co.

Longman

Longman was a publishing company founded in London, England in 1724. It is now an imprint of Pearson Education.-Beginnings:The Longman company was founded by Thomas Longman , the son of Ezekiel Longman , a gentleman of Bristol. Thomas was apprenticed in 1716 to John Osborn, a London bookseller, and...

, Samouelle joined the Natural History Museum at the same time as William Elford Leach

William Elford Leach

William Elford Leach FRS was an English zoologist and marine biologist.Leach was born at Hoe Gate, Plymouth, the son of a solicitor. At the age of twelve he went to school in Exeter, studying anatomy and chemistry. By this time he was already collecting marine samples from Plymouth Sound and along...

. Leach appears to have aided Samouelle greatly, with Bate & Westwood stating "Dr. Leach is the principal authority for Samouelle's work"; when Leach left the museum, Samouelle took over his position, but he "seemed incapable of independent work". Twenty years later, in 1840, after neglecting his work, drinking, insulting his superiors, and on one occasion, removing the labels from Adam White's

Adam White (zoologist)

-Biography:White was born in Edinburgh. He became acquainted with John Edward Gray, Keeper of Zoology at the British Museum. At the age of eighteen, White obtained a post in the Museum in the Zoology Department....

 specimens, Samouelle was sacked. He died less than five years later.

Samoulle was primarily interested in Lepidoptera

Lepidoptera

Lepidoptera is a large order of insects that includes moths and butterflies . It is one of the most widespread and widely recognizable insect orders in the world, encompassing moths and the three superfamilies of butterflies, skipper butterflies, and moth-butterflies...

 but also wrote A nomenclature of British Entomology, or a catalogue of above 4000 species of the Classes Crustacea, Myriapoda, Spiders, Mites and insects intended as labels for cabinets of Insects, etc., alphabetically arranged. This work established new genera

Genus

In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...

in other insect orders.

External links

• The entomologist's useful compendium; or, An introduction to the knowledge of British insects, comprising the best means of obtaining and preserving them, and a description of the apparatus generally used; together with the genera of Linné by George Samouelle, Associate of the Linnean Society of London London, Printed for T. Boys, 1819. Available at Google Books or Biodiversity Heritage Library.