in 1755, 1765, and in 1768, with additions. Having secured warm friends in Hogarth and Sir Joshua Reynolds, Kirby went to London. Through the Earl of Bute he was appointed teacher of perspective to the Prince of Wales, afterwards George III, by whom he was appointed clerk of the works at Kew Palace. Under the patronage of the king, who defrayed the expense of the plates, Kirby published in 1761 a splendid folio volume entitled 'The Perspective of Architecture, in two parts, … deduced from the Principles of Dr. Brook Taylor; and performed by two Rules only of universal application.' He appears to have designed in 1762 St. George's Chapel, Old Brentford, Middlesex (Dict. of Architecture, Architect. Publ. Soc., vol. iv.) About 1767 he published 'Dr. Brook Taylor's Method of Perspective compared with the Examples lately published … as Sirigatti's by J. Ware … being a Parallel between those two Methods of Perspective. In which the superior excellence of Taylor's is shewn,' 4to, London. On 26 March 1767 he was elected F.R.S. (Thomson, Hist. of Royal Soc. App. iv. p. lii), and F.S.A. on the following 4 June (Gough, Chronological List of Soc. Antiq. 1798, p. 20). He was secretary, and in 1768 elected president, of the Incorporated Society of Artists, in place of Francis Hayman [q. v.], at the instance of a discontented clique; but resigned the post the same year on the plea of ill-health. From 1765 to 1770 he exhibited with the society views in Richmond Park, Kew, and the neighbourhood. His drawings of Kew Palace were engraved by Woollett in 1763 (Redgrave, Dict. of Artists, ed. 1878, p. 251). Kirby died on 20 June 1774, aged 58, and was buried in Kew churchyard. Such was Gainsborough's regard for Kirby, that he made a special request in his will that he might be buried by his side—a desire which was carried into effect (Faulkner, Brentford, &c., 1845, pp. 128, 131, 156-157). A portrait of Kirby by Hogarth was in 1867 in the possession of Mr. George C. Handford, and a portrait of Kirby and his wife by Gainsborough was in 1868 in the possession of the Rev. Kirby Trimmer. A mezzotint portrait of Kirby, by J. Dixon, from the painting by Gainsborough, and an engraving by D. Pariset, from a picture by P. Falconet, are also known (Evans, Cat. of Engraved Portraits, i. 197). Kirby married Sarah Bull of Framlingham, Suffolk, who died in 1775. His son William, who was in 1766 a member of the Incorporated Society of Artists, died suddenly at Kew in 1771; his daughter Sarah, afterwards married to James Trimmer of Brentford, was a popular writer of books for the young [see Trimmer]. Kirby was uncle of William Kirby (1759-1850) [q. v.], the entomologist.
[Memoir, principally compiled by Mrs. Trimmer, in Nichols's Biog. Anecdotes of Hogarth, No. 8; Life of Mrs. Trimmer; Catalogues of the Second and Third Special Exhibitions of Nat. Portraits at South Kensington; Gough's British Topography, Suffolk; Edwards's Anecdotes of Painters; Gent. Mag. new ser. xxxiv. 219.]
KIRBY, WILLIAM (1759–1850), entomologist, eldest son of William Kirby of Witnesham Hall, Suffolk, and of Lucy Meadowe, was born at Witnesham on 19 Sept. 1759. He derived a taste for natural history from his mother, who died in 1776. He was educated at Ipswich grammar school and Caius College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. in 1781 and M.A. in 1815. In 1782 he took holy orders and obtained the sole charge of Barham, Suffolk, held by the Rev. N. Bacon with the vicarage of Coddenham in the same county. He remained at Barham for the remainder of his life, the vicar on his death in 1796 leaving him the next presentation.
Kirby was already an excellent botanist, when the accidental finding of a beautiful insect determined him to study entomology. His name appears in the first list of fellows of the Linnean Society, founded in 1788, and in 1793 he contributed to the society's ‘Transactions,’ the first of a long series of papers. In 1802 he published his important monograph on English bees. He had collected 153 wild specimens in his own parish. In 1805 he made the acquaintance of William Spence [q. v.] of Drypool, Hull, whom he afterwards persuaded to be his coadjutor in the famous ‘Introduction to Entomology,’ first suggested in 1808. The form chosen was that of letters on the most interesting subjects in entomology. Vol. i. appeared in 1815, and a third edition was issued with vol. ii. in 1817; vols. iii. and iv., containing the special systematic description of insects, were written entirely by Kirby, owing to his friend's ill-health. The sixth edition was edited by Spence in 1843, when Kirby's advanced age disabled him from work. The seventh and subsequent editions, in one volume, consist of the first two volumes of the sixth edition. During the writing of the introduction Kirby had (in 1811) contributed an important paper to the Linnean Society, in which he founded the new insect order of Strepsiptera, which has held its ground. In 1818 he was elected F.R.S. He took an active part in the Zoological Club of the Linnean Society, founded in 1822, which afterwards developed into
