Reginald Wagstaffe


Reginald Wagstaffe was a British naturalist, ornithologist, and museum curator.

Career

Wagstaffe attended the University of Cincinnati to study ornithology. He was appointed Curator of the Yorkshire Museum in January 1941, replacing Walter Collinge, having formerly been Curator of the Stockport Municipal Museum. Wagstaffe lived with his wife, Trissie, in Manor Cottage, a building next to the Museum in the grounds of York Museum Gardens. They were living here during the Baedeker Raid on York on 29 April 1942, during which a bomb narrowly missed the Museum, but caused considerable damage to the roof and windows. Wagstaffe led the efforts to clean up the museum and salvage the Type fossils from the wreckage.
He left the Yorkshire Museum in 1948 to take up the post of Keeper of Vertebrate Zoology at Liverpool City Museum where he remained for the rest of his working life, founding the Liverpool Ornithologist's Club and serving as a member of the British Birds Rarities Committee from 1963 to 1970.

Publications