James John Joicey

Who was James John Joicey?

James John Joicey was an amateur entomologist who assembled a massive collection of Lepidoptera in a private museum called the Hill Museum.

A wealthy man of leisure he first competed with Walter Rothschild, attempting to build the world's premier orchid collection. He went bankrupt for the then very large sum of 30,000 pounds. The judge made him promise to abandon collecting orchids. Instead Joicey switched to Lepidoptera, founding the Hill Museum at his Witley home. He began by acquiring the Henley Grose-Smith collection in 1910. Three years later he purchased the Herbert Druce collection. Between 1913 and 1921 Joicey bought further collections, those of Roland Trimen, 1916, Robert Swinhoe, 1916, Lt.-Col. C. G. Nurse, 1919, Hamilton Druce, 1919 and Paul Dognin 1921. He added to these by sending special collectors to explore various regions on his behalf, for example, the Pratt brothers to South America and New Guinea, and T. A. Barns to Central Africa. By 1930 the Hill Museum contained upwards of 380,000 specimens. Joicey employed curators, such as George Talbot, who published on world Lepidoptera, concentrating on New Guinea, Hainan Island, and central and eastern Africa. He published four volumes of the Bulletin of the Hill Museum, 1931-1932.