William Gabriel Blatch

William Gabriel Blatch (1840-25 February 1900) was a British entomologist and superintendent.

Biography Blatch was born in London in 1840. He was initially apprenticed as a cobbler before working as a teacher in Colchester. He first worked as a superintendent of the Essex House asylum before moving, in 1867, to the Midland Counties Idiot Asylum (latterly known as Middlefield Hospital) where he worked until his death in 1900.

Blatch's entomological collection was split after his death. Large portions of it are extant in the collections of the Manchester Museum, Birmingham Museum, and Yorkshire Museum. Small numbers are also present in the collections of Doncaster Museum and Bolton Museum.

He described the species Neuraphes planifrons and Rhizophagus oblongocollis whose type specimens are now in Manchester Museum.

In 1890 he was elected as a Fellow of the Entomological Society of London.

Select publications BLATCH WG. 1879. "Entomological rambles in the Midlands. No 1 Bewdley Forest". The Midland Naturalist 2:193-196