Dr Henry Linckmeyer Saxby (19 April 1836 – 4 September 1873) was an English born

physician A physician (American English), medical practitioner (Commonwealth English), medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through th ...

and

ornithologist Ornithology is a branch of zoology that concerns the "methodological study and consequent knowledge of birds with all that relates to them." Several aspects of ornithology differ from related disciplines, due partly to the high visibility and th ...

, most famous for his work in

Shetland Shetland, also called the Shetland Islands and formerly Zetland, is a subarctic archipelago in Scotland lying between Orkney, the Faroe Islands and Norway. It is the northernmost region of the United Kingdom. The islands lie about to the no ...

. Saxby was born in London and his father,

Stephen Martin Saxby Stephen Martin Saxby (21 August 1804 – 11 March 1883)''Cambridge University Alumni, 1261-1900'' was a British practitioner of a form of Astrometeorology, meteorological astrology or Pseudo Meteorology in the Victorian Era. Through his calculati ...

, was of some renown himself, as a naval architect, inventor and weather forecaster. Henry Saxby first visited Shetland in 1854, assisting his elder brother, Stephen Henry Saxby (1831-1886) to collect bird specimens. In 1858, Henry Saxby returned to Shetland to Unst and in 1859 he married Jessie Edmondston, youngest daughter of

Laurence Edmondston Dr. Laurence Edmondston (9 February 1795 – 7 March 1879) was a British-born naturalist and doctor who lived in Shetland, Scotland, United Kingdom. Laurence Edmondston was born in Lerwick, the capital of Shetland, in 1795. His mother was Mary ...

. To many Shetlanders, Jessie Margaret Edmondston Saxby, a prolific author, is the better known of the two. Henry Saxby was the island doctor for most of his residence on Unst. In 1871, he took his family to

Argyllshire Argyll (; archaically Argyle, in modern Gaelic, ), sometimes called Argyllshire, is a historic county and registration county of western Scotland. Argyll is of ancient origin, and corresponds to most of the part of the ancient kingdom of ...

, but he was already ill and he died two years later. He had started work on a manuscript, eventually published in 1874 as ''The Birds of Shetland'' after it was edited and annotated by Stephen Saxby, who was then a vicar in

Somerset ( en, All The People of Somerset) , locator_map = , coordinates = , region = South West England , established_date = Ancient , established_by = , preceded_by = , origin = , lord_lieutenant_office =Lord Lieutenant of Somerset , lord_ ...

. One of his sons was

Thomas Edmondston Saxby Dr. Thomas Edmondston Saxby, Esq. F.R.F.P.S.: Fellow of the Royal Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons; also: L.R.C.P. & S. Edin. (License of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons Edinburgh): (1869-1952) was a Scottish medical doctor, work ...

(1869–1952), who was also a physician and an ornithologist.

Bibliography

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Saxby, Henry 1836 births 1873 deaths English ornithologists People associated with Shetland 19th-century British medical doctors