Marmaduke Tunstall

Marmaduke Tunstall, born in 1743 at Burton Constable in Yorkshire, was a distinguished English ornithologist and collector. He is best known for his seminal work, Ornithologia Britannica, published in 1771, which is considered one of the first British texts to employ binomial nomenclature in the classification of birds.

In 1760, Tunstall inherited the family estates of Scargill, Hutton, Long Villers, and Wycliffe. His education as a Catholic took place at Douai in France, after which he settled in Welbeck Street, London. There, he curated an extensive museum and amassed a remarkable collection of living birds and animals, including the formal description of the Peregrine falcon.

At the young age of twenty-one, Tunstall became a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London, and in 1771, he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society, marking his significant contributions to the field of ornithology.

Following his marriage in 1776, Tunstall relocated his museum to Wycliffe, where it became one of the finest collections in England. After his passing at Wycliffe, his estates were inherited by his half-brother, William Constable, who invited the renowned engraver Thomas Bewick to document the bird specimens from Tunstall's museum. The collection, later known as the Wycliffe Museum, was sold to George Allan and eventually became part of the Newcastle Literary and Philosophical Society, evolving into the Newcastle Museum.