Eyton Thomas Campbell (1809-1880)
Thomas Campbell Eyton FLS FZS was born and died at Eyton Hall, north of Wllington.
He took up the sudy of natural history at an early age, publishing important ornithological books
in 1836 and 1838 and in the latter year a paper entitled "An Attempt to ascertain the Fauna of Shropshire and North Wales" in a new journal, Magazine of Zoology and Botany. Among his naturalist friends was Charles Darwin. When he inhertied the family estate in 1855, he built at Eyton a museum to house his "marvellous collection of skins and skeletons of Birds from all parts of the world", which formed the basis of his major work, Osteologia Avium, published between 1871 and 1878 (Forrest 1899 pp. 21-22). Leighton attributes various plant records to Eyton, then living at Donnerville House, nearer Wellington, including Trollius europaeus in its most south-easterly locality in Shropshire, in a meadow near Walford; Arabis glabra near Marton, north-east of Baschurch; Descurania sophia from Ness; Hypericum elodes in three localities - one still extant - in the Ruyton area; Drosera intermedia and Andromeda polifolia from a moss near Cold Hatton; Myrica gale from a moss at Walford and "Yestalls" [?The Yesters] nearby; and Paris quadrifolia from "The Pell wood, Totterton". Some of Eyton's herbarium specimens are in Shrewsbury Museum.
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Thomas Campbell Eyton was born at Eyton Hall, near Wellington, Salop, September 10, 1809. He took up the study of natural history at an early age, and numbered amongst his friends Agassiz, Asa Gray, Charles Darwin, A R Wallace, and Professor Owen. In 1836 he published a "History of the Rarer British Birds," with beautiful wood-cut illustrations, the work of a local engraver named Marks. In 1838 appeared his "Monograph of the Anatidae, or Duck Tribe. " A small reprint of this book appeared in 1869. The same year he published in the Annals and Magazine of Natural History (a periodical then just started) a highly interesting paper, entitled "An attempt to ascertain the Fauna of Shropshire and North Wales. " This list gives the Mammals, Birds, Reptiles, and Fishes of the district, and forms the foundation on which subsequent naturalists have worked. The reason that Shropshire is here associated with North Wales was that the paper was written by Eyton for a Society formed a few years previously (1835) in which he took a strong personal interest - the Shropshire and North Wales Natural History and Antiquarian Society. He wished the paper to cover the same area as that of the sphere of the Society's operations. The old Museum on College Hill was formed by the same Society, though later on transferred to the Corporation of Shrewsbury. After coming into the estate in 1855, Eyton built a large museum at Eyton Hall, and amassed here a marvellous collection of skins and skeletons of Birds from all parts of the world. Most of the skeletons were prepared and mounted by his own hands, and he issued in 1858 a catalogue of these, a copy of which is in the Reference Library at Shrewsbury.
Later on (1871-8) he published a large work, entitled "Osteologia Avium," illustrated by drawings made from the skeletons in his museum. He also wrote several other works on various subjects. An ardent naturalist and sportsman, Eyton was always most ready to help any who took an interest in his pursuits, and visitors came from far and near to see him and his collections. His friendship for Darwin continued to the end of his life, though he was strongly opposed to his theory of Natural Selection, and was much vexed at finding some of his own observations on the habits of pigeons used by Darwin in support of that hypothesis. He died October 25, 1880, and his collections were then dispersed, but the shells were presented to the Shrewsbury Museum.