Tameside Museums have a collection of about 130 little boxes of birds’ eggs, many in their original boxes with handwritten labels. They were collected by Charles Moore (1869-1949) who was a member of the Fields Naturalists’ and Microscopical Society who met at the Mechanics Institute in Stalybridge. Groups like these went on countryside walks and visits to the seaside, picking up specimens to add to their collections. The president of the Society was J. F. Cheetham, the Stalybridge MP who bequeathed the Astley Cheetham Library and Art Gallery, along with his extensive art collection, to the borough.
Charles Moore worked in Wilson and Robert’s office in Millbrook and was a member of Stalybridge Harmonic Society and St Paul’s Operatic Society.
Egg collecting was a popular hobby for Victorian naturalists but it has been illegal to take the eggs of most wild birds since the Protection of Birds Act 1954.
Birds’ eggs collected by Charles Moore
The largest egg in our collection is that of an ostrich which is the largest living bird species and is only now natively found in Africa. Their eggs are on average 15cm long, 13cm wide and weigh 3.1Ib which is over 20 times the weight of a chicken’s egg!
Ostrich egg
The smallest egg in our collection belongs to the wren. Even though it’s one of the smallest birds in the United Kingdom it has a very loud voice when it is singing! Its eggs are about 1.5cm long and 1.5cm wide.
Wren eggs collected by Charles Moore
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