Lansdown Guilding

Lansdown Guilding (9 May 1797 – 22 October 1831) was a theologian and naturalist. He is best known for his works on the flora and fauna of St Vincent in particular and on the Caribbean in general. He wrote numerous illustrated papers for journals of scholarly societies in England including the first descriptions of velvet worms and scale insects in the ground pearl family. He corresponded with Charles Darwin, providing him with notes on the natural history of the Caribbean region. He named this genus Peripatus. He included an excellent watercolor painting of the specimen, and a mention to the defensive mechanism of sticky liquid squirts. A translation into English from Guilding's description, originally written in Latin, shows how he first classified the specimen in the Class Mollusca, and how astonished he was for discovering a new species.

He was also among the first to describe scale insects of the ground pearl family, Margarodidae. Guilding's announced "Fauna" and "Pomona occidentalis" were never completed. The manuscripts were lost, together with his table of colors.

Guilding's first wife died "in childbed” on 15 November 1827, leaving five children behind. A year later he married Charlotte Lydia Melville, of St. George's, Grenada. In 1831 he went on vacation to Bermuda, where he died on 22 October. The cause of death was not recorded.