24 FAUNA OF SHROPSHIRE 



Rowland Hill, second Viscount, of Hawkstone (nephew of 

 the " Great Lord Hill "), was born in 1800, and succeeded 

 to the title and estates in 1842. He had represented 

 Shropshire in Parliament during three sessions, and was 

 a member at the time of his succession to the peerage. 

 In his public life he was exceedingly popular, his kindly 

 manner and high intellectual qualities fitting him in an 

 eminent degree for such a position as that of Lord- 

 lieutenant of the County, which he occupied subse- 

 quently. He was an ardent supporter of the Salop 

 Infirmary and other charitable institutions, and profuse 

 in his liberality. Always fond of sport of all kinds, he 

 developed a taste for natural history, and very soon after 

 coming into the estate he determined to form a private 

 museum, which should be as complete and beautiful as 

 money and assiduous research could make it. To 

 accommodate it he built a new wing to the existing 

 mansion, lofty and well lighted, and commissioned 

 Henry and John Shaw to fit up a series of cases 

 appropriate to the various classes of Birds and Mammals. 

 In the short space of five years there was gathered 

 together a complete series of all the then known species 

 of British Birds and Mammals, such as was never before 

 seen in any private collection. Here also most of the 

 Shropshire specimens of rare local occurrence found a 

 fitting home, and these are mentioned frequently in the 

 following pages. Not content with studying and collect- 

 ing our native Animals, Lord Hill experimented in the 

 Park with the acclimatization of such foreign species as 

 the noble African Antelope, the Eland ; and the curious 

 Australian Bird, the Emu. One of his sons had a 

 narrow escape from an infuriated Eland, while now and 



