Henry Eeles Dresser

Henry Eeles Dresser (9 May 1838 – 28 November 1915) was an English businessman and ornithologist.

Henry Dresser was born in Thirsk where his father was the manager of the bank set up by his grandfather. Dresser's father left Thirsk in 1840–41 to become a bank manager in Leeds before moving south to set up business as a commission merchant in the Baltic timber business in London in 1846. Henry Dresser senior was in business with his father-in-law, Robert Garbutt of Hull, who traded with Hackman and Co of Vyborg (Viipuri) in southern Finland. Henry Dresser senior purchased a large timber sawmill business, the Lancaster Mills, near Musquash in New Brunswick in 1848.

Henry Eeles Dresser was the eldest son of Henry Dresser and Eliza Ann Garbutt; he had five sisters and three brothers. His father intended him to take over the family business in the Baltic timber trade so took him out of school in Bromley and sent him to Ahrensburg in 1852, to learn German and in 1854, to Gefle and Uppsala to study Swedish. Henry Dresser spent a time in Hackman's offices in Vyborg learning Finnish during 1856–58, during which time he travelled round the Baltic coast. Dresser had a lifelong interest in birds and collected bird skins and eggs from his early teenage years. Whilst he was in Finland in 1858 he discovered breeding Waxwings and was the first English person to collect their eggs bringing fame among English ornithologists, most of whom were egg and skin collectors.

Through the 1860s, Dresser travelled widely through Europe and was twice in New Brunswick at his father's sawmill. He sought out ornithologists with whom he could exchange birds and eggs. In 1863, during the American Civil War, he travelled to Texas via the Rio Grande on behalf of Liverpool and Manchester businessmen, taking a cargo of blankets, quinine and other goods in short supply to be sold and purchased raw cotton with the proceeds. During his time in Texas from June 1863– July 1864 Dresser made a collection of around 400 bird skins from southern Texas. His notes from his time in Texas, published in The Ibis (1865–66) are a leading source of information for the period and include mention of several interesting birds including the extinct (or almost extinct) ivory-billed woodpecker, the almost extinct Eskimo curlew and the endangered whooping crane.

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