Edward Smith-Stanley, 13th Earl of Derby, formerly Lord Stanley, 1837

Licence granted courtesy of The Rt Hon. The Earl of Derby, 2013

Oil on canvas

Edward Smith-Stanley, the 13th Earl of Derby was an English politician and naturalist, born in 1775.

Edward Smith-Stanley kept a large collection of living animals at Knowsley Hall, England with over 1,000 birds and around 350 mammals.

Edward Smith-Stanley was keenly interested in natural history and was a patron of the Linnean Society of London, the world’s oldest active biological society.

Edward Smith-Stanley acquired six volumes of Australian natural history drawings, copied and collected by his friend and botanist Aylmer Bourke Lambert, now known as the TAL & Dai-ichi Life (Earl of Derby) collection.

The TAL & Dai-ichi Life (Earl of Derby) collection is one of the largest collections of drawings of Australian birds, plants, mammals and fish from the First Fleet period.

The Lord Derby parakeet (Psittacula derbiana) is named after Edward Smith-Stanley, the 13th Earl of Derby.