1. Colonel William Willoughby Cole Verner was a British soldier, writer, ornithologist, and inventor of a type of compass.
15 Facts About Willoughby Verner
1. 2.
Willoughby Verner was briefly a Professor of Topography at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst.
3.
Willoughby Verner is remembered for bringing Cueva de la Pileta, a cave filled with prehistoric paintings, to international attention.
4.
Willoughby Verner took out patents to improve a cavalry sketch board which was designed to be used strapped to the wrist.
5.
In 1895 Willoughby Verner had a novel version of a prismatic compass named after him with a luminous dial.
6.
Willoughby Verner wrote Sketches in the Soudan in 1885 and Rapid Field-Sketching and Reconnaissance and Advanced Guard and Outpost Duties for Riflemen in 1889.
7.
Willoughby Verner wrote An historical account of the Rifle Brigade and of the King's Royal Rifle Corps in 1890 and Some Notes on Military Topography in 1891 and Map Reading and the Elements of Field Sketching in 1893.
8.
In 1911, Willoughby Verner discovered Cueva de la Pileta in Benaojan and with Abbe Breuil discovered Devil's Tower Cave in Gibraltar.
9.
Breuil had come to Spain because of Willoughby Verner's reporting of Cueva de la Pileta near Ronda.
10.
Willoughby Verner had been told of the cave that had been discovered by a Spanish farmer called Jose Bullon in 1905 who was looking for bat guano.
11.
Willoughby Verner had himself lowered into the cave and later reported his findings in the London-based Saturday Review.
12.
Willoughby Verner wrote a number of weekly reports for the Review which factually described the cave, although Willoughby Verner accounted for the drawings of extinct animals by assuming that they had been sketched a result of observing the fossil bones that were there.
13.
Willoughby Verner later co-authored a scientific paper with Breuil and Obermaier on Cueva de la Pileta.
14.
Willoughby Verner wrote History and Campaigns of the Rifle Brigade in 1912.
15.
In 1917 Breuil returned and he and Willoughby Verner were warned off their next investigation of Devil's Tower Cave in Gibraltar by a local policeman.