Willoughby Verner
| Willoughby Verner | |
|---|---|
Colonel Verner in a 1903 colour photograph by Sarah Angelina Acland
|
|
| Born | 22 October 1852 |
| Died | 25 January 1922 (aged 69) Algeciras |
| Citizenship | United Kingdom |
| Known for | Author, ornithologist, cave discoverer |
| Military career | |
| Service/ |
 British Army
|
| Rank | Colonel |
| Unit | Rifle Brigade |
| Battles/wars | Boer War |
Colonel William Willoughby Cole Verner (22 October 1852 – 25 January 1922) was a British soldier, writer and ornithologist and inventor of a type of compass. He was briefly a Professor of Topography at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. He is remembered for bringing Cueva de la Pileta, a cave filled with prehistoric paintings, to international attention.
Verner was born in 1852 and he showed an early interest in bones owning the fossils of extinct animals. By 1867 he had started his own diary recording his interest in egg collecting and shooting. In 1874 he joined the Rifle Brigade and was posted to Gibraltar although he also holidayed on the Scottish island of Tiree with fellow naturalist Howard Irby where they continued their interest in studying, shooting (and eating) the local wildlife. He continued his diary until 1890.
He took out patents to improve a cavalry sketch board which was designed to be used strapped to the wrist. In 1895 Verner had a novel version of a compass named after him. The compass was manufactured by two different companies and version nine of the design was still being made in 1942.
Verner became the official historian of the Rifle Brigade and he edited the letters home of one of its majors to produce A British Rifle Man: The Journals and Correspondence of Major George Simmons, Rifle Brigade, during the Peninsular War & Campaign of Waterloo. He also wrote The Military Life of H. R. H. George: Duke of Cambridge based on Prince George, Duke of Cambridge.
He wrote Sketches in the Soudan (sic) in 1885 and Rapid Field-Sketching and Reconnaissance and Advanced Guard and Outpost Duties for Riflemen in 1889. The First British Rifle Corps. He wrote An historical account of the Rifle Brigade and of the King's Royal Rifle Corps in 1890 and Some Notes on Military Topography in 1891 and Map Reading and the Elements of Field Sketching in 1893. In 1894 his friend (Leonard) Howard Irby published The Ornithology of the Strait of Gibraltar and after he retired to Algeciras he wrote My Life among the Wild Birds in Spain. With illustrations in 1909.
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