English writer on natural history, born on the 14th of January 1780, at Hutton Cranswick, Yorkshire, where his father was vicar of the parish. He became clerk in a government office in 1798, and for a time was secretary to Lord Dartmouth, when president of the Board of Control. In 1812 he was appointed commissioner of hackney coaches, and later he became deputy surveyor-general of the royal parks and palaces. On the abolition of this office he retired on a pension, and he died at Brighton on the 28th of March 1868.
The result of his interest in the habits and characteristics of animals was a series of pleasant and popular books on natural history, the principal of which are Gleanings in Natural History (1832–1835); An Angler’s Rambles (1836); Anecdotes of Dogs (1846); and Lectures on Natural History (1863). He also edited Izaak Walton’s Compleat Angler, Gilbert White’s Selborne, and L. Ritchie’s Windsor Castle, and wrote a number of handbooks to places of interest, including Windsor and Hampton Court.
