35 Facts About Francis Willughby

Francis Willughby FRS was an English ornithologist, ichthyologist and mathematician, and an early student of linguistics and games.

Francis Willughby was born and raised at Middleton Hall, Warwickshire, the only son of an affluent country family.

Francis Willughby was a student at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was tutored by the mathematician and naturalist John Ray, who became a lifetime friend and colleague, and lived with Willughby after 1662 when Ray lost his livelihood through his refusal to sign the Act of Uniformity.

Francis Willughby married Emma Barnard in 1668 and the couple had three children.

Francis Willughby's grandfathers were Sir Percival Willoughby of Wollaton Hall, and Thomas Ridgeway, 1st Earl of Londonderry.

The family were affluent gentry, whose main seat, inherited by Francis Willughby, was Wollaton Hall, now in Nottingham.

Francis Willughby appears to have read widely, his library at his death containing an estimated 2,000 books, including literary, historical and heraldic works as well as natural science volumes.

Francis Willughby commenced his studies at Trinity aged 17 as a Fellow-commoner.

Francis Willughby's tutor was James Duport, who shared the Willughbys' royalist sympathies in the English Civil War.

The Royal Society and its members such as Ray, Wilkins and Francis Willughby sought to put the empirical method into practice, including travelling to collect specimens and information.

Later that year, Ray and Francis Willughby journeyed through northern England to the Lake District, the Isle of Man and the Calf of Man, seeing a Manx shearwater chick at the last site.

Francis Willughby interviewed Welsh speakers to attempt a systematic study of the language that, although never published, influenced subsequent scholars.

When Francis Willughby had recovered, he spent part of the summer birdwatching in Lincolnshire.

Ray and Francis Willughby later visited the West Country together in 1667, returning via Dorset, Hampshire and London.

The party continued north through Haarlem, Amsterdam and Utrecht before heading to Strasbourg, where Francis Willughby made a diversion to buy a handwritten book from its author, Leonard Baldner.

Bacon contracted smallpox somewhere in Northern Italy, and Francis Willughby continued with just a servant to Montpellier, where Ray was already present.

Francis Willughby found little of scientific interest in Spain, which he considered backward.

In Seville, Francis Willughby had received a letter saying that his father was seriously ill, so he had hastened his return to Middleton where he arrived shortly before Christmas 1664.

Francis Willughby was being urged by his relatives to find a wife, but procrastinated knowing that this would restrict his researches.

Francis Willughby bred and studied leaf-cutter bees, his chosen research species later being named after him as Francis Willughby's leaf-cutter bee, Megachile willughbiella.

Francis Willughby was the first person to unambiguously distinguish the honey buzzard from the common buzzard, and in 2018 it was suggested that the former species should be renamed "Francis Willughby's Buzzard" to commemorate this.

In 1668 Francis Willughby married Emma Barnard, daughter of Sir Henry Barnard of Bridgnorth and London.

Francis Willughby was buried at St John the Baptist parish church, Middleton, with Ray, Skippon and Jessop present with the family at the interment.

Francis Willughby saw it as his duty to complete and publish his colleague's work on animals.

Francis Willughby's Ornithology was intended to describe all the then-known birds worldwide.

Francis Willughby had been keen to add details of "characteristic marks" to help with identification.

Emma Francis Willughby paid for the 80 metal-engraved plates that completed the work, and this is acknowledged on the title page.

The next book, on fish, was many years in the making; Francis Willughby's widow had remarried, and her new husband, Josiah Child, had barred Ray from accessing his friend's papers.

Ray makes it clear that Francis Willughby did the bulk of the insect research, including, for example, 20 pages of beetle descriptions.

Francis Willughby gave details of dozens of games and sports, including cards, cockfighting, football and word games; some are now unfamiliar, such as "Lend me your Skimmer".

Francis Willughby studied the first games that babies and children play, and wrote a more mathematical section "On the rebounding of tennis balls".

Francis Willughby was a competent mathematician, and there is evidence that the lost text considered probability with regard to card and dice games.

Much of Francis Willughby's written work has been lost, along with his scientific equipment and most of his collections of items of natural history interest; what remains is largely owned by the family and housed in the University of Nottingham Middleton archive.

Francis Willughby's work was initially well-regarded, but Ray's reputation grew as time passed, and, in 1788, the English botanist James Edward Smith wrote that Francis Willughby's contribution had been overstated by his friend, who gave himself too little credit.

The pendulum swung again when Charles E Raven wrote his 1942 biography of Ray, seeing him as the senior partner and saying that Willughby had "less knowledge, patience and judgment" than Ray, whom he considered a scientist of genius, and whose contributions he tended to compare favourably with the achievements of most other writers.