Sidney Jackson collection

Tourist guide [Gilbert F Rogers], The Grampians Victoria 1928. Photographer: Charles Petrie HP.82.19.149

Sidney William Jackson (1873-1946), naturalist and writer, was interested in bird-watching and egg-collecting from boyhood. By 1907 he had amassed a large collection of Australian bird eggs, described in ‘Egg Collecting and Bird Life of Australia: Catalogue and data of the “Jacksonian Oological Collection' 1907, illustrated with his own photographs. He sold the collection to H.L. White, pastoralist of Scone. (now in the Museum of Victoria). In 1907 to 1927 Jackson was employed by White as curator of his collection. He was able to sketch, photograph, and was a taxidermist. After 1927 he lived in Sydney writing newspaper and magazine articles. He was an amateur ventriloquist, and a mimic of bird calls. He recorded his field trips in diaries. With his brother frank he developed techniques for climbing trees. One of his major achievements was to obtain a specimen of the female Rufous Scrub-bird in Qld in 1919.

c1890-1940; Approx. 200 prints, two albums of travels, one album of drawings of eggs. Mainly from bush trips in northern NSW and Queensland from 1890 to the 1940s.

References:

Guy B Gresford, ‘Jackson, Sidney William (1873-1946)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography
Judy White (comp. and ed.), Sidney William Jackson, bush photographer 1873 to 1946 (1991)