IN 1886 a Keighley Literary and Scientific Society bought the lifetime collections of a local naturalist and taxidermist called Jesse Millar, then in straitened circumstances. He died the following year.
IN 1886 a Keighley Literary and Scientific Society bought the lifetime collections of a local naturalist and taxidermist called Jesse Millar, then in straitened circumstances. He died the following year.
Jesse Millar, born in 1809, never went to school and followed his father's trade as a handloom weaver, before devoting himself from middle age to "stuffing birds and mounting insects".
He produced the impressive sequence of birds in their natural habitats now in Cliffe Castle.
When these arrived at the Victoria Park museum, a photographer tried to record this kingfisher feeding its young. The glass case reflected his image – a man in a dark jacket and white collar with the flash from his big square camera radiating downwards!
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