Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
Attributed to The Auk (1904).

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
Attributed to The Auk (1904).

Thomas McIl­wraith, busi­ness­man and orni­tho­lo­gist, was born on 26 Decem­ber, 1824, in New­ton upon Ayr, Scot­land. He emi­grat­ed to Hamil­ton, Upper Cana­da, late in 1853, be­com­ing ma­na­ger of the local gas works. He retired in the 1880s.

McIlwraith is chiefly re­mem­ber­ed as a pio­neer orni­tho­lo­gist and author of Birds of Ontario (1886, re­vis­ed 1894). How­ever, he was also a valued mem­ber of the Hamil­ton Scien­ti­fic Asso­ci­a­tion for many years, serv­ing as librar­ian and cura­tor of col­lec­tions for 15 years, vice pres­ident in 1860-61, and presi­dent in 1880-81.

For more details, see the essay on Mc­Ilwraith in the Dic­tion­ary of Cana­dian Bio­graphy, Volume 13.