Dru Drury

Dru Drury (4 February 1725 – 15 January 1804) was a British collector of natural history specimens and an entomologist. He received specimens collected from across the world through a network of ship's officers and collectors including Henry Smeathman. His collections were utilized by many entomologists of his time to describe and name new species and he is best known for his book Illustrations of Natural History which includes the names and descriptions of many insects, published in parts from 1770 to 1782 with most of the copperplate engravings done by Moses Harris.

Dru Drury was born in Wood Street, London. His father, also Dru Drury, was a citizen, goldsmith and silversmith of the City of London. Drury's great-grandfather, William, Lord of the Manor of Colne, was Sheriff of Cambridgeshire in 1676. The Drury family traced back to a Thomas Drury, of Fincham, Norfolk, who died in 1545. Descendants of Dru Drury retained the status of citizen and goldsmith of the City of London until at least 1969.

Drury apprenticed to his father in the Goldsmith's Company in 1739 and became a liveryman in 1751. In 1748 he married Esther, the daughter of his father's fourth wife from an earlier marriage to soapmaker John Pedley of London. Drury then inherited his father's business and became the owner of several freehold houses in London and Essex. By 1771 he was earning nearly £2000 a year and had amassed enough wealth to buy the entire stock of a fellow silversmith, Nathaniel Jeffreys. Despite his wealth, he was forced into bankruptcy in 1777 after he was cheated by two Yorkshire cutlers, William Tate and John Wheate. Assisted by Joseph Banks, John Fothergill, and other friends, he resumed business but retired in 1789 to devote all his time to entomology. Drury and his wife had three children, Mary, born 1749; William (who became a silversmith) born 1752; and Dru, born 1767. He spent his retirement between London and Broxbourne, Hertfordshire where he collected insect specimens. Around 1797 the family moved to Turnham Green but Drury began to face ill health starting with stones in his bladder. Other complications followed and he died in the home of his son in the Strand on 15 January 1804. He was buried at St. Martin-in-the-Fields on 21 January.

Drury was keenly interested in entomology even before retiring as a silversmith and was the president of the Society of Entomologists of London from 1780 to 1782. He was also a member of the Linnean Society. Beginning in 1770, Drury corresponded with a number of entomologists from all over the world from India to Jamaica and America. He offered 6 dimes for any insect of any size from officers of merchant ships travelling afar. He also had a three-page pamphlet on instructions for collecting. It is through these connections that Drury received much of his collection.

(26) To Mr. Keuchan, at Jamaica. June 13, 1774.

You inquire after Mr. Smeathman, who is settled on the Coast of Africa. He, has been there almost three years but has sent nothing over except insects, a circumstance which astonishes us, for his patrons expected a great variety of subjects long before this in ye different branches of Natural History. Many of the insects that he has sent are surprisingly fine. A great number entirely new, especially among, the Coleoptera, some of which are very large.

--From a collection of letters published in The Scientific Monthly.

From 1770 to 1782, he published the three-part Illustrations of Natural History, Wherein are Exhibited Upwards of 240 Figures of Exotic Insects, with copperplates by Moses Harris and Peter Mazell. This was later revised and republished under the title Illustrations of Exotic Entomology in 1837. A German translation of the first volume was published by Georg W. F. Panzer. Drury's work was self-published and many of his correspondences with various workmen in the publishing industry have survived. In the letters, detailed accounts of prices and publishing techniques are provided which shed light on Britain's early printing industry. The original drawings for this book, by Moses Harris and Mary Gartside, were recently rediscovered in rural Virginia, USA.