The firm of Henry James Burton & Son, Wardour Street, London W

Henry James Burton was born in 1815 in London, became a celebrated Naturalist Taxidermist and Plumassier and passed the business onto his son, Walter Burton.

This firm is known for producing high quality work.  It was established in the mid-1800s in London, first in Hampstead in the 1850’s then Marylebone in the 1860’s and ultimately in Wardour Street from 1868 to approximately 1910.

Henry James Burton took an opportunity to bring his business to the centre of trading in the West End of London at 120 Wardour Street and lived above the shop and traded there for at least 10 years between 1868-1878.

Later he moved to 191 Wardour Street where the business traded for the next thirty years from 1878 – 1910.

The building at number 191 Wardour Street today is counted amongst the prime examples of commercial London real estate.  Although the retail operation that’s there now is now modern and trashy, if you look past the outward décor there’s still a handsome building underneath it all.

The Burtons created a prominence as a high quality London taxidermy company along with the likes of their contemporaries Ward, Gardner and Leadbeater. Henry James Burton took advantage of his location which had easy access to the feather markets in London and often produced the type of colourful displays of birds found in middle class drawing rooms of the day.

The firm of Henry James Burton & Son had a veritable list of high profile clients including gentlemen and nobility.

On the two example labels we can see clients including Mr T. Parkin of Hastings who is known to have made global travels to bring back the species he had hunted, including from Canada, the USA and Australia.  T Parkin also sent work to other London taxidermists including James Gardner, and I have an example of Gardner’s work for Parkin amongst my own collection.

Another example label shows that Burton’s client was also Lord Breadalbane which dates these particular labels to around 1880 – 1890. A few Henry James Burton cases were sold at Tennants in the UK in 2022, as part of the sale of the James Harrison Collection.

The business of Henry Burton & Son continued until sometime between 1901-1910. In 1901 Henry Burton’s son, Walter Burton, having taken over the family business at 191 Wardour Street in 1895 is still listed on the census in Wardour Street, but by the time of the 1911 census he had already moved out of central London to Hammersmith where he died in 1913 .

Burton’s Hummingbird

There are also historical references to “Burton’s Hummingbird” and I surmise, based on dates, that this relates to Walter Burton who is known to have gone on expedition, as was fashionable at the time for gentlemen of means, enabling him to find and identify new species and/or bring them back.  I am still researching this point.

Historical Academic References to Henry Burton & Son

According to information offered at the website historicalrarebirds.info Henry Burton & Son was a highly respected firm of naturalists who preserved the rejected 1863 Kent Spotted Sandpiper. The company also sent the 1882 Hertfordshire Rustic Bunting to Lord Lilford and shot and preserved the 1887 Sussex Broad-billed Sandpiper as well as preserving the 1890 Scilly Black Stork.

The firm of Henry James Burton is also mentioned in the Alfred Newton Papers published by Cambridge University (2011).  Alfred Newton (1829-1907) was an Ornithologist, and a Professor of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy between 1866-1907. Letters from Henry James Burton to Alfred Newton dated between 1877- 86 are recorded (their references =Add.9839/1B/1438-1439) in the Cambridge University archive.