Jules Colbeau
Belgian naturalist (1823-1881)
Jules Alexandre Joseph Colbeau (1 July 1823 – 11 April 1881) was a Belgian naturalist and founder of the Malacological Society of Belgium (Société Malacologique de Belgique) which later became the zoological society. Colbeau was also involved in bringing together several scientific societies in Belgium under the federation of scientific studies. He was a mentor for the naturalist and artist François Roffiaen.
Life and work
Colbeau was born in Namur where his father Alexandre-Joseph was an established merchant and municipal councilor while his mother Julie-Joséphine Grandgagnage was the sister of Joseph Grandgagnage (1797–1877). He went to study humanities at the Namur Athenaeum in 1835. He began to collect shells, butterflies, beetles and coins from an early age. He also studied music along with his brother Émile, following his mother's wishes, and took private lessons in art from F. Lambert. He went to study law at the University of Louvain and the family moved there. He made friends with the Louvain entomologists Charles Defré and Auguste Tennstedt who specialized in lepidoptera and beetles leading to his taking up an interest in the molluscs. His mother died in 1843 and his father died in 1857.
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This entry incorporates text from “Jules Colbeau” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.