He was born in
Leicester. He was the eldest son of Samuel Kirby, who was a banker. He was educated privately, and became interested in
butterflies and
moths at an early age. The family moved to Brighton, where he became acquainted with Henry Cooke, Frederick Merrifield and J. N. Winter.[2] He published the Manual of European Butterflies in 1862.
In 1879 Kirby joined the staff of the
British Museum (Natural History) as an assistant, after the death of
Frederick Smith. He published a number of catalogues, as well as Rhopalocera Exotica (1887–1897) and an Elementary Text-book of Entomology. He also did important work on
orthopteroid insects including a three volume Catalogue of all known species (1904, 1906, 1910). He retired in 1909.
A short biography of Kirby, with particular reference to his work on
phasmids, was published by P. E. Bragg in 2007.[3]
Evolution
Kirby was an advocate of
theistic evolution. In his book Evolution and Natural Theology, he argued that
evolution and theism are compatible. He noted that
creationism was scientifically untenable and refuted its arguments.[4] He viewed nature as a "vast self-adjusting machine".[5]
Burton, Richard F., ed. (1886), "Contributions to the Bibliography of the Thousand and One Nights and Their Imitations", The Nights (appendix), vol. 10