{{short description|English zoologist (1824–1890)}} {{For|the Scottish footballer|William Dallas (footballer)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2025}} {{Use British English|date=August 2015}} {{Infobox academic | honorific_prefix = | name =William Sweetland Dallas | honorific_suffix ={{post-nominals|country=GBR|FLS}} | image = | image_size = | alt = | caption = | birth_name = | birth_date = 1824 | birth_place = | death_date = 29 May 1890 | death_place = Burlington House, Piccadilly, London | death_cause = | occupation = {{plainlist| * Zoologist * Museum curator }} | awards = | alma_mater = | thesis_year = | discipline = | sub_discipline = | workplaces = {{plainlist| * Yorkshire Museum * British Museum }} }}
'''William Sweetland Dallas''' {{post-nominals|country=GBR|FLS}} (1824–1890) was a British zoologist who studied the insect collections at the British Museum, and served as an assistant secretary of the Geological Society of London and a Keeper of the museum of the Yorkshire Philosophical Society, apart from being an editor of the ''Popular Science Review'' as well as the ''Annals and Magazine of Natural History''. He translated several biology books from German into English.
==Biography== Dallas was born in Islington on January 31, 1824, the son of William Dallas, a Scottish East India Merchant and member of Lloyds. Along with his brother he took an interest in natural history at an early age. He studied the classics at University College School and mastered French, German, and Italian. Later he acquired Danish, Swedish and Norwegian. When his father's business collapsed he along with his brothers John and James began to work. William found time to spend at the reading room of the British Museum after work. John Edward Gray encouraged the entomological interests of Dallas and he began to publish from 1847. Dallas was elected a member of the Linnean Society in 1849.<ref name="Pyrah" /> He married Frances Esther, daughter of lawyer Liscombe Price in 1849. He was hired to catalogue the hemiptera in the British Museum from 1850 to 1852. Following the resignation of Edward Charlesworth, he was appointed Keeper of the Yorkshire Museum in 1858, at the age of 31. He lived in York with his wife, four sons and two daughters until 1868.<ref name='Pyrah'>{{cite book |author1=Pyrah, B. |date=1988 |title=The History of the Yorkshire Museum and its Geological Collections |chapter=Palaeontological Wealth (1857-1892) |publisher=North Yorkshire County Council |pages=81–103}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |chapter=Report of the Council of the Yorkshire Philosophical Society |title=Yorkshire Philosophical Society Annual Report for 1858 |date=1858 |volume=1858 |page=7 |url=https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/250563#page/13/mode/1up}}</ref> Dallas was an editor and translator for the ''Zoological Record'', the ''Annals and Magazine of Natural History'' and the ''Popular Science Review''. In 1868 he was elected to the post of Assistant Secretary of the Geological Society following the resignation of H. M. Jenkins, resulting in his resignation from the role of Keeper.<ref name='Pyrah' /><ref name=":0">{{Cite journal |last=H. W. |date=1890 |title=William Sweetland Dallas, F.L.S. |url= |journal=Geological Magazine |language=en |volume=7 |issue=7 |pages=333–336 |doi=10.1017/S0016756800186820 |issn=0016-7568}}</ref>
Notably, he translated ''Facts and Arguments for Darwin'' by German biologist Fritz Müller and ''Erasmus Darwin'' by German biologist Ernst Krause into English.<ref>{{cite book |author= Krause, Ernst |author-link= Ernst Krause (biologist)|title= Erasmus Darwin; with Preliminary Notice by Charles Darwin |url= https://archive.org/details/dli.ministry.01955/page/n3/mode/2up?view=theater |translator= Dallas, W. S. |translator-link= William Dallas |place= London |publisher= John Murray |year= 1879 |via= Internet Archive |accessdate= 9 May 2024}}</ref><ref>{{Harvnb|Browne|2002|p=260}}</ref> He also translated Karl Theodor Ernst von Siebold's ''Wahre Parthenogenesis bei Schmetterlingen und Bienen (1856)'' into English as ''On a true parthenogenesis in moths and bees''<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/darwinletters/calendar/entry-2017.html | title= Letter 2017 — Darwin, C. R. to Huxley, T. H., 9 Dec (1856)| publisher=Darwin Correspondence Project }}</ref> and created the index for Charles Darwin's ''The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication''.<ref name=":0" />
He died following paralysis at Burlington House, Piccadilly on 29 May 1890 and was buried at West Norwood Cemetery.
==Notes== {{Reflist}}
==References== *{{Cite book | last = Browne | first = E. Janet | author-link = Janet Browne | year = 2002 | title = Charles Darwin: vol. 2 The Power of Place | publication-place = London | publisher = Jonathan Cape | isbn = 0-7126-6837-3 }} * ''West Norwood Cemetery Dickens Connection'', Friends of West Norwood Cemetery[http://www.fownc.org], 1995
==External links== * {{wikisource author-inline}} * [http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/darwinletters/namedefs/namedef-1179.html Biography on Darwin Correspondence Project] * {{Gutenberg author | id=41383}} * {{Internet Archive author |sname=William Sweetland Dallas}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Dallas, William Sweetland}} Category:1824 births Category:1890 deaths Category:19th-century British zoologists Category:Burials at West Norwood Cemetery Category:People associated with the British Museum Category:Yorkshire Museum people Category:Members of the Yorkshire Philosophical Society
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