Charles William Leng (6 April 1859 – 24 January 1941) was an American naturalist and

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the stu ...

especially associated with

Staten Island, New York Staten Island ( ) is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City, coextensive with Richmond County, in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. Located in the city's southwest portion, the borough is separated from New Jersey b ...

, where he was the borough historian from 1923 until the 1930s. Leng was an internationally known

entomologist Entomology () is the scientific study of insects, a branch of zoology. In the past the term "insect" was less specific, and historically the definition of entomology would also include the study of animals in other arthropod groups, such as arach ...

who co-founded the Staten Island Institute of Arts & Sciences with William T. Davis. He served as director from 1919 until his death on January 24, 1941. Leng is known for his 1920 work on the

beetles Beetles are insects that form the order Coleoptera (), in the superorder Endopterygota. Their front pair of wings are hardened into wing-cases, elytra, distinguishing them from most other insects. The Coleoptera, with about 400,000 describ ...

of the United States of America. He was also co-author with Davis of ''Staten Island and its People'', a comprehensive five-volume history of the island from 1609 to 1929.

Legacy

Public School 54, in the Willowbrook section of Staten Island, is named after Charles W. Leng.

Publications

Willis Stanley Blatchley Willis Stanley Blatchley (October 6, 1859, North Madison, Connecticut - May 28, 1940, Indianapolis, Indiana) was an American entomologist, malacologist, geologist, and author. His studies included Coleoptera, Orthoptera, Hemiptera, and th ...

, Charles William Leng, ''Rhynchophora or weevils of north eastern America'', Indianapolis, The Nature Publishing Company, 1916 - 682 page
Full text
* ''Catalogue of the Coleoptera of America North of Mexico'' Mount Vernon, N. Y.: John D. Sherman, Jr. also with Willis Blatchley. * Charles William Leng, William T. Davis, ''Staten Island and Its People'', Lewis Historical Publishing Company, Inc., 1930

References

''Staten Island Advance'', January 13, 2009
accessed January 14, 2009.
Obituary
on

JSTOR JSTOR (; short for ''Journal Storage'') is a digital library founded in 1995 in New York City. Originally containing digitized back issues of academic journals, it now encompasses books and other primary sources as well as current issues of j ...

External links

Encyclopedia of Life The ''Encyclopedia of Life'' (''EOL'') is a free, online encyclopedia intended to document all of the 1.9 million living species known to science. It is compiled from existing trusted databases curated by experts and with the assistance of non ...

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accesses full list of

taxa In biology, a taxon (back-formation from ''taxonomy''; plural taxa) is a group of one or more populations of an organism or organisms seen by taxonomists to form a unit. Although neither is required, a taxon is usually known by a particular nam ...

(1,133) described by Leng (type Leng into the search box) Historians from New York (state) American entomologists American naturalists People from Staten Island 1859 births 1941 deaths Scientists from New York (state) Historians of New York City History of Staten Island {{US-historian-stub