Denny Historical Egg Collection

About:

The Museum contains a historical collection of blown eggs from UK and European species most of which were collected between 1755-1930. The exact origins of the collection are unknown, as with many of our specimens, due to the destruction of records in the WWII bombing of Sheffield. Species are mostly common British birds such as the Chiffchaff Phylloscopus collybita and the Pied Wagtail Motacilla alba.

The collection expanded in 2016 with a donation of Phillip Gordon's (1962-2010) dated egg collection (approx. 300 eggs) by his sister. These eggs were mostly purchased between 1910-1920s from a variety of sources including egg dealers, and a full record of collection dates was provided alongside the donation. The museum gained another addition to the historic collection in 2021 when it was bequeathed twelve trays of historical bird eggs (approx. 1000 eggs) from Captain Vivian Hewitt's (1888–1965) collection.

In addition to the historic collection, we also hold Professor Tim Birkhead's research collection built from fieldwork on Skomer Island, Wales between collected under licence 2013-2018 from Natural Resource Wales and with permission from The Wildlife Trust of South and West Wales.

A domestic chicken egg next to a model egg of the elephant bird - an extinct giant flightless bird from the Pleistocene

Tribute to Phillip Gordon:

(Written by his sister Glynis Rose)

Phillip Rowland Gordon was born in Leicester on the 3rd May 1962. His parents had been missionaries in the Belgian Congo and returned to live in England. He was the youngest of 5 children.

Phillip’s interest in the great outdoors and wildlife began at a very early age. He spent his childhood wandering and exploring the fields and hedgerows that surrounded his home, climbing trees, making dens and fishing for tadpoles and newts in the nearby ponds.

His father was an avid reader and keen naturalist and ornithologist. He became his teacher and mentor and during the years it took for Phillip to grow from a small boy to a young man they spent many hours roaming and rambling the Scottish, Welsh and English countryside together. At the age of eighteen Phillip went travelling around Australia and New Zealand.

New Zealand became his second home and in the years to come he returned there on a number of occasions, sometimes for six months at a time.

To go out for a walk with Phillip was an education in itself. He knew every bird call and the habitat of numerous species. His keen eyesight and hearing never missed an opportunity. He’d delve into crevices in stone walls, climb over boulders and up trees in a flash at the sight of a small reptile or mammal. His observations were outstanding.

Phillip was an active supporter of the Leicester Wildlife Trust and spent a great deal of his leisure time involved in voluntary work and recruiting new members for the Trust. He was also a councillor for the Green Party for Leicester County Council.

Phillip was a man who followed his passion for wildlife and its conservation right up until his untimely death in 2010.

He would have been very happy to see this collection displayed here at the Museum.

Hewitt egg collection:

In 2021, the Alfred Denny Museum was bequeathed twelve trays of eggs which formed part of Captain Vivian Hewitt’s vast collection. The eggs were originally collected in the late 1800s and early 1900s, predominantly by two notable ornithologists, F. Jourdain and J. Goodall. The collection contains great historical and biological value because, unusually, it contains precise details of the location and collection date of all the eggs.

In total the collection covers 395 clutches of historical bird eggs from an extensive range of species from Guillemots (Uria aalge), Peregrine Falcons (Falco peregrinus), Barn Swallows (Hirundo rustica) and Golden Eagles (Aquila chrysaetos). One of the most unique items in the collection are life-sized models of the (now extinct) Great Auk (Pinguinus impennis) eggs. Most of the Alfred Denny’s Hewitt collection comprise the eggs of the Northern Lapwing (Vanellus vanellus). These 347 eggs possess a range of unusual colourations from pale blue (known as cyanic) to a deep brick red (known as erythristic).

As Hewitt’s primary motivation as a collector was possession over ornithological study, as a result much of the specimens records were preserved with the eggs, detailing the precise locality of their collection and even the extent of their incubation. For instance, the extensive variety of unusually coloured Guillemot eggs were taken from the Bempton Cliffs in Yorkshire, England, whilst some of the most exotic eggs in the collection include giant ostrich, emu, and cassowary eggs from Australia and New Guinea, as well as intricately ordained Cuckoo and Bronze-winged Jacana eggs from India and South America. Occasionally these records include historical photographs and personal notes by the original collectors.

The Museum sought funds from the British Birds Charitable Trust (BBCT) to acquire a bespoke egg cabinet to securely store the egg trays. A £3000 grant was approved by the BBCT in 2022 and the cabinet has now been installed in the Museum. It is built in the style of a traditional Victorian museum cabinet, with hardwood exterior, and internal shelves that are spaced at custom distances to accommodate the differently sized historical egg boxes.

We are sincerely grateful to the BBCT for awarding us this grant which has ensured the secure and appropriate housing for a significant part of Captain Vivian Hewitt’s historical egg collection.

Two life-sized models of Great Auk (Pinguinus impennis) eggs from the Alfred Denny Museum's Hewitt egg collection

A tray of Guillemot (Uria aalge) eggs with a large array of colour diversity from the Alfred Denny Museum's Hewitt egg collection

Who was Captain Vivian Hewitt?

Captain Vivian Hewitt was an eccentric amateur naturalist specialising in oology (the study of bird eggs, nests and breeding behaviour) and professional aviator. Born in Grimsby, England in 1888, Hewitt grew up with considerable wealth, spending much of his adult life indulging in peculiar and adrenaline-fuelled hobbies such as car racing and flying aeroplanes. Seeking greater fame, in 1912 Hewitt took to the skies and made one of the first ever flights from Anglesey, Wales to Dublin, Ireland, traversing over 60 miles without a compass. With the commencement of World War I, his recreational aeronautical skills were put to good use as he became a test pilot for the USA owned Curtiss Aviation Company, earning him the title of Captain Hewitt.

After the war Hewitt dedicated much of the rest of his inheritance to the collection of wild bird eggs, skins and taxidermy, buying from expert traders such as Harold Gowland, John Wolley and zoologist Alfred Newton (professor at Cambridge University 1866 -1907). His collection was comprised of egg clutches taken from an extensive range of species such as Guillemots (Uria aalge), Peregrine Falcons (Falco peregrinus), Barn Swallows (Hirundo rustica) and Golden Eagles (Aquila chrysaetos). Perhaps Hewitt’s rarest and scientifically + historically valuable collections were the thirteen eggs and four stuffed specimens belonging to the extinct Great Auk (Pinguinus impennis), many of which Hewitt bought from his dear friend and fellow oologist (the study or collecting of birds' eggs), Reverend Francis C.R. Jourdain. Whilst the Alfred Denny Museum does not have any of the remaining original Great Auk specimens in its collection, it does contain two life-sized model replicas of the eggs.

By the mid-1930s, Vivian Hewitt had become a keen conservationist, focusing on the protection of birds on Anglesey Island, with the aim of establishing his own bird sanctuary with Jack Parry, the son of his housekeeper whom he treated as his own son. He set up home in a house known as Bryn Aber on 200 acres of land. He created a 5ft deep lagoon for the diving ducks and grebes in the area (North Wales Wildlife Trust, 2021). To diversify the bird population, Hewitt also built a large brick wall to provide shelter to the shrubbery and trees he had previously planted.

With Hewitt’s death in 1965, Jack Parry inherited both the estate (later sold to the North Wales Naturalists’ Trust) and Hewitt’s extensive ornithological collection. However, Parry did not share Hewitt’s interest in the collection, and, amid fears of its destruction, it was rescued by the secretary of The British Trust for Ornithology (BTO), David Wilson. Whilst Wilson retained some specimens, much of the collection resided in the basement of the Rothschild Museum in Tring, Hertfordshire. Today, the egg specimens are distributed across the UK (e.g., the Natural History Museum in London and Tring, local museums in Edinburgh and Cardiff) and further afield (Delaware Museum of Nature and Science, USA). After he died in 2020, the material retained by Wilson was passed on by David Clugston (acting as Wilson’s executor) in 2021 to the previous Alfred Denny Museum curator, Tim Birkhed. These specimens have now been databased by zoology student, Madeleine Waite in 2024 as part of a 70-hour internship at the museum.

A postcard showing Captain Vivian Hewitt seated in an airplane

Skomer Island Fieldwork

Professor Tim Birkhead has studied Common Guillemots, Uria aalge, on Skomer island for most of his career, observing their behaviour, ecology including the significance of the guillemot’s unusual pyriform (pear shaped) egg.

During his research on the adaptive significance of the guillemot’s egg shape Birkhead built up a research collection of Guillemot and Razorbill (Alca torda) eggs that are now house held in the Alfred Denny Museum.

That research, conducted in collaboration with Dr Jamie Thompson (then Tim’s research assistant), Dr Nicola Hemming's (then post-doc at Sheffield), and Professor Bob Montgomerie (a colleague at Queens’ University, Ontario Canada) resulted in a number ground-breaking studies on the biology of birds’ eggs

Publications:

Biggins, J. D., Thompson, J. E., and Birkhead, T. R. (2018). Accurately quantifying the shape of birds’ eggs. Ecology and Evolution. 8: 9728–9738.
Birkhead T R., Thompson, J. E., and Montgomerie, R. (2018). The pyriform egg of the Common Murre (Uria aalge) is more stable on sloping surfaces. The Auk. 135: 1020–1032.
Montgomerie, R., N. Hemmings, N., Thompson, J. E., and Birkhead, T. R. (2021). The Shapes of Birds’ Eggs: Evolutionary Constraints and Adaptations. The American Naturalist 198(6): E215-E231.

Guillemot eggs with their unique "pyriform" egg shape

Close up of egg with date written above egg blow hole

Curatorial efforts:

Between 2016-2017 the museum underwent refurbishments thanks to the University Heritage Officer at the time, Dr Lynn Fox, and Tim Birkhead. The 1970s under-bench units housing the historic egg collection were replaced with new cabinets. These eggs were mostly unlabelled and entirely uncatalogued, so in 2017 the collection was transferred to new glass-topped cabinets and stored in museum boxes with acid free card and plastazote foam sheets. As specimens were moved they were photographed and databased. The egg-move was organised and conducted by a final year APS undergraduate Eloise Wingrove who was funded by an On-CampUS Placement.

When Phillip Gordon's eggs were added to the collection they too were photographed in their original boxes with their labels. The padding was removed and replaced with acid free fibre and the eggs and labels replaced as closely as possible as in the original arrangement.

Since 2023 PhD student, Katherine Assersohn, has been working on carefully photographing and databasing each tray of eggs in the Hewitt collection. To ensure security of the eggs some of the old padding in the trays will be replaced with acid free cotton padding to prevent eggs rolling within their boxes.

In 2024 BSc Zoology student, Madeleine Waite completed the databasing of the Hewitt collection on a 70 hour placement. Entering the remaining eggs into the database with accompanying photographs as well as creating a new catalogue with images of related documents and labels to be transcribed in future.

The Importance of Historical Egg Collections

Egg collections are sometimes considered worthless, but their role in identifying the effects of DDT (an agricultural insecticide), acid rain and disease organisms on the health and structure of bird eggs demonstrates their long-term value.

During the 1800s to early 1900s, oologists collected eggs from the far reaches of the Earth, with many of the earliest egg collections conflicting with conservation efforts which, along with other factors such as habitat loss, contributed to the endangering of many bird species, such as the Northern Lapwing (Vanellus vanellus) and Red Knot (Calidris canutus). Additionally, as it was viewed as a predominantly amateur activity, egg collecting’s scientific value was frequently questioned. Today the collection and selling of wild birds' eggs is only permitted with a license for research under the Protection of Birds Act in 1954 and the subsequent 1981 Wildlife and Conservation Act, declaring that collections must only be kept given that they contain adequate documentation, stating that the eggs were collected before 1954.

Collections, such as the Hewitt eggs, are subsequently kept only for education and research purposes. For instance, recent studies of anthropogenic effects (environmental change originating in human activity) on bird egg diversity show that the thinning of bird eggshells in the 1960s and 1970s was due to the use of pesticides on farmland in the USA and UK. Moreover, researchers working with egg collections have access to an extensive range of analytical technology (e.g., advanced image-processing software and genetic sequencing of the eggshells) that can be used to determine the foraging habits, geographical distributions and changing morphology of birds over hundreds of years. Thus, the meticulous records kept by collectors, such as Reverend Francis Jourdain, are essential when examining historical patterns of avian breeding success and diversity. Accordingly, the digitisation of these records improves the availability of data worldwide, increasing researchers’ access to information regarding the effects of global warming on bird populations, and ultimately improving the conservation of endangered birds.

When observing historical egg collections, it is important to recognise the inherent bias in colour, size and shape of the eggs presented. These biases stem from historical market trends, where rarer eggs commanded higher prices, leading some collectors to undertake perilous expeditions to obtain them. Many of the original collectors not only collected eggs for their private collections or research but also as mementos of their expeditions during the European colonisation of the Americas and Africa. Therefore, whilst these collections provide a plethora of valuable scientific data and a snapshot of past bird egg biodiversity, they also shed light on the legacy of Britain's role in colonialism and the imbalance this brings to modern scientific research.

1954 Protection of Birds Act:

This bill was introduced with the aim to protect birds, their nests and their eggs all the year round, with exceptions made for game and food birds.

Before this egg collecting (also known as 'birdnesting' or oology) had been common, and thousands of eggs were kept in public and private collections. In the 19th and early 20th century the collection of wild bird eggs was considered a respectable scientific pursuit, with dedicated collectors embarking on often risky expeditions across the world.

Some collectors would go to great lengths to collect the eggs of birds, from scaling steep cliffs like the climbers ('egg-climmers') of Bempton Cliffs in Yorkshire, to the extreme case of Charles Bendire (1836-1897) who was willing to have his teeth broken to remove an egg stuck in his mouth which he'd placed for safe keeping when climbing down from a tree.

By the early 1900s, conservation organisations started making connections between declining bird numbers and egg collecting, and by the 1920s there was a growing backlash against birdnesting, spearheaded by the RSPB who had denounced the practice.

In 1954 the Protection of Birds Act made it illegal to (a) kill, injure or take, any wild bird; or (b) take, damage or destroy the nest of any wild bird while that nest is in use; or (c) take of destroy an egg of any wild bird.

Photograph of egg collectors climbing a tree in Norway to get a rare red Herring Gull (Larus argentatus) egg in 1890

Photograph of an egg collector traversing Batts Head Cliff in Dorset to retrieve a Peregrine Falcon (Falco peregrinus) egg in 1916

Acknowledgements: ''Hewitt collection' and 'The importance of historical egg collections' written by Madeleine Waite, reviewed by Tim Birkhead and Emma Hughes, edited by Kane Dibb. Photographs of the Hewitt collection and egg collectors taken by Madeleine Waite.

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