Eleanor Anne Ormerod (11 May 182819 July 1901) was a pioneer English entomologist. Based on her studies in agriculture, she became one of the first to define the field of agricultural entomology. She published an influential series of articles on useful insects and pests in the Gardeners' Chronicle and the Agricultural Gazette along with annual reports from 1877 to 1900. These annual reports were produced by summarizing information provided by her network of correspondents from across Britain. Belonging to the landed gentry, she worked as an honorary consulting entomologist with the Royal Agricultural Society of England and received no pay for any of her work. She also promoted the use of paris green as an insecticide and called for the extermination of the house sparrow.
Life
Eleanor was a daughter of Sarah and George Ormerod, FRS, author of The History of Cheshire, and was born at Sedbury Park, Gloucestershire. From early childhood insects were her interest and she had great opportunities to study them in the large estate where she grew up. While her brothers went to Rugby School, studying under Thomas Arnold, she was tutored at home by her mother. She took an interest in insects which became more serious on 12 March 1852 when a rare insect led her to Stephen's Manual of British beetles. She acquired a Pillischer microscope around 1863 and began to make more keen observations. She studied agriculture in general and became a local authority on it. When, in 1868, the Royal Horticultural Society began forming a collection of insect pests of the farm for practical purposes, Ormerod contributed greatly to it, and was awarded the Flora medal of the Society.
In 1877 she published a pamphlet, Notes for Observations on Injurious Insects, which was a questionnaire distributed to interested persons, who in turn sent in the results of their researches, resulting in a series of Annual Series of Reports on Injurious Insects and Farm Pests. She was elected to the Entomological Society of London in 1878. In 1881, Ormerod published a special report on the turnip-fly, and in 1882 was appointed consulting entomologist to the Royal Agricultural Society, a post she held until 1892. For several years she was lecturer on scientific entomology at the Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester.
left|thumb|upright|In later life
Her fame was not confined to England; she received silver and gold medals from the University of Moscow for her models of insects injurious to plants, and her treatise on The Injurious Insects of South Africa showed how wide was her range. In 1899, she received a silver medal from the .
Her works on natural history were widely cited and she undertook brave experiments:
Among other works are the Cobden Journals, Manual of Injurious Insects, and Handbook of Insects injurious to Orchard and Bush Fruits. Almost the last honour which fell to her was the honorary degree of LLD of the University of Edinburgh in March 1900—a unique distinction, for she was the first woman upon whom the university had conferred this degree. The Dean of the law faculty summarised Ormerod's contributions: