Item 0020 - Letter, 24 April 1882

Sir William Coles Paget Medlycott was born on June 6, 1831, in Milborne Port, Somerset, England.

He was the 3rd Baronet of the Medlycott family who lived in the famous Ven House in Sherborne, England. He was a naturalist and a Fellow of the Zoological Society. He used to visit Malta frequently to study and draw its natural history and also to hunt and collect birds. Medlycott's main published contribution to Maltese natural history is an appendix (X) entitled "Notes on the Geology, Botany, and Natural History of Malta" in “Malta: Past and Present” (1870). He also published an undated catalogue of birds entitled "Catalogue of the Birds of Malta with their English and Maltese Names". In the course of carrying out research for the publication "History of Ornithology in Malta", Medleycott's very accurate pencil sketches and water-colour drawings of the Malta plants and animals were discovered in the Natural History Museum in London. After Meddleycott’s death, they were donated to the museum by his nephew Sir Hubert Mervyn Medlycott. Apart from visiting Malta, he also travelled to several other countries including North America where he made a similar collection of sketches and water-colour drawings of plants, birds and fishes.

He died on January 8, 1887, in Weymouth, Dorset, England.