John Guille Millais

John Guille Millais
Johnny Millais c 1900
Born	24 March 1865 Annat Lodge, Perth, Perthshire, Scotland
Died	24 March 1931 (age 66) Horsham, West Sussex, England
Nationality	British
Known for	Painting, sculpture, ornithology, gardening
Notable work	Natural History of British Feeding Ducks; Mammals of Great Britain and Northern Ireland; Biography of John Everett Millais.
Awards	Fellow of the Zoological Society of London (FZS)

John Guille "Johnny" Millais (/ˈmɪleɪ/; 24 March 1865 – 24 March 1931) was a British artist,naturalist, gardener and travel writer who specialised in wildlife and flower portraiture. He travelled extensively around the world in the late Victorian period detailing wildlife often for the first time. He is noted for illustrations that are of a particularly exact nature.

John Guille Millais was the fourth son and seventh child of Sir John Everett Millais, the Pre-Raphaelite painter, and his wife Effie Gray. John was raised in London and Perthshire with a wide interest in natural history, which embraced horticulture, hunting including big game hunting and wildfowl. As a boy he made a collection of birds shot around the Perthshire coast of Scotland where he spent much of his childhood. This formed the basis of a lifetime collection of around 3,000 specimens that he later housed in a private museum in Horsham in West Sussex, England. Specimens from this collection were depicted by his father in his painting The Ruling Passion (also known as The Ornithologist). John Guille himself painted a bird in his father's painting Dew-Drenched Furze.

Millais began his career in the army with the Seaforth Highlanders, but after six years he resigned to travel the world. His was clearly a wanderlust based on a desire to see, record and paint the natural world. To this end he travelled widely in Europe, Africa and North America. In the New World in the 1880s/90s he explored Canada and Newfoundland and helped map uncharted areas of Alaska.

In 1903 Millais co-founded the Society for the Preservation of the Wild Fauna of the Empire (SPWFE). Clearly a clubbable and convivial man in 1909 Millais was a founder member of the Shikar Club, a sportsclub where like-minded associates could dine and discuss their passion for hunting especially big game hunting. Millais was passionate about hunting and fellow members included the famous hunters Frederick Selous (the brother of ornithologist Edmund Selous) and explorer and hunter Frank Wallace. The club still survives and includes the Duke of Edinburgh amongst its members.