Edward Doubleday (1811 Epping, Essex – 1849 London) was an English entomologist mainly interested in Lepidoptera. He is best known for Doubleday, E. & Westwood, J.O. The Genera of Diurnal Lepidoptera: comprising their generic characters, a notice of their habits and transformations, and a catalogue of the species of each genus. Illustrated by William Chapman Hewitson. London: Longman, Brown, Green & Longmans (1847-1848).
Doubleday was also an outstanding ornithologist. In the 1830s he joined a fellow Quaker named Foster on a trip to the United States, and while here wrote a series of letters that appeared in The Entomological Magazine in London under the running title of "Communications on the Natural History of North America." In the U. S., he spent much time at Trenton Falls on West Canada Creek, a tributary of the Mohawk River in New York State. There he and Foster collected numerous insects, including a half dozen stoneflies new to science that Edward Newman, yet another Quaker, described and named in a paper, "Entomological Notes: Perlites," in The Entomological Magazine, 5: 175-178. Doubleday was appointed to the British Museum, and he stayed there until he died in December of 1849. A bachelor, he was survived by his brother Henry, also a bachelor and an outstanding naturalist in his own right. As Robert Mays, author of the book, Henry Doubleday, The Epping Naturalist (Precision Press, 1978) wrote: "Had Edward lived longer his name would undoubtedly have found a place beside those of the eminent 19th century entomologists."