Annie Meinertzhagen

Annie Meinertzhagen (2 June 1889 – 6 July 1928) was a British amateur ornithologist who contributed to studies on British birds, most significantly the moulting patterns in ducks and waders. She married fellow ornithologist Richard Meinertzhagen in 1921 and died from a gun shot fired under suspicious circumstances.

Born Anne Constance Jackson, her parents were Major and Mrs Randle Jackson of Swordale, a village in eastern Ross-shire in the Scottish Highlands. Mrs Randle Jackson was the daughter of Edward Baxter of Kincaldrum, Angus. Anne developed an early interest in natural history, especially in birds. With her younger sister Dorothy, who was to become an entomologist, she studied zoology for three years at the Imperial College of Science in London.

However much of her early ornithological work occurred while she was based in Swordale, in Ross and Cromarty, and along the firths of Cromarty and Dornoch. She took an interest in bird migration and corresponded with lighthouse keepers who sent her specimens of rarities. She collected the first Scottish autumn specimens of the yellow-browed warbler and was the first ornithologist to demonstrate that the Icelandic race of the common redshank (Tringa totanus robusta) visits Britain.

In March 1921 she married British soldier, intelligence officer and ornithologist Colonel Richard Meinertzhagen. She spent part of her honeymoon in research at Walter Rothschild’s ornithological museum at Tring.

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