American metal worker and amateur naturalist. Born in Mansfield, Ohio, Edward Wilkinson initially trained as a sheet metal worker and was successful in his trade. It seems he had an interest in natural history from a young age and this he developed with little external influence or tutoring. Wilkinson served in the Civil War (1861-1865), and afterwards resumed his original career before gaining an opportunity to travel to Mexico in 1873. His brother was involved in mining operations in Baltopilas (Chihuahua), Mexico, and Edward spent two years working there with his brother and sampling the local flora and fauna. Wilkinson was amongst the first to survey this area for herpetofauna, sending some 500 reptile specimens to D. E. Cope for study, which are now housed in the United States National Museum and the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences.
He returned to Mansfield in 1875 due to the ill health of his mother and for the next ten years spent his spare time collecting cultural and historic artefacts from the early settlements of Ohio, as well as animal specimens and all sorts of literary, scientific, historic and military objects of interest. In 1885 he would return to Mexico in order to collect more extensively around the city of Chihuahua. This second trip was much shorter than the first and he soon found himself back in the United States. By 1891 Wilkinson had amassed a sufficient quantity of artefacts and specimens that he decided to found the Mansfield Memorial Museum, combining his collections with those of Dr. J.R. Craig and becoming curator of the establishment. For the next 14 years he worked solely as curator of this museum, identifying and arranging new acquisitions and physically building the many cabinets and cases required for such an assortment of objects. In 1905 he resigned and several years later presented the entirety of his collection to his local post (no. 131) of the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR), a union of veterans from the Civil War who continued tending to museum after 1909. The museum survives to this day, despite a nearby fire destroying part of the building in 1928, ten years after Wilkinson's death.
Sources:
Flores Villela, O. A., Smith, H. M. and Chiszar, D., 2004, "The History of Herpetological Exploration in Mexico". Bonner Zoologische Beiträge, 52(3/4): 311-335
Smith, H. and Mittleman, M. B., 1943, "A Brief Biographical Note on Edward Wilkinson" American Midland Naturalist 30(3): 803-805
Sources:
H.M. Smith and M.B. Mittelman, 1943, "A Brief Biographical Note on Edward Wilkinson", American Midland Naturalist, 30(3): 803-805.
