Isabella L Bird

A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains. Isabella L Bird

Isabella Lucy Bird, married name Bishop (15 October 1831 - 7 October 1904), was a nineteenth-century English explorer, writer, photographer, and naturalist.[3] With Fanny Jane Butler she founded the John Bishop Memorial hospital in Srinagar. She was the first woman to be elected Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. Bird was born on 15 October 1831 at Boroughbridge Hall, Yorkshire, the home of her maternal grandmother and her father's first curacy after taking orders in 1830. Her parents were Rev Edward Bird BA (1794-1858) and his second wife, Dora Lawson (1803-1866). Bird moved several times during her childhood. In 1832, Reverend Bird was appointed curate in Maidenhead. Because of her father's ill health Bird's family moved again in 1834 to Tattenhall in Cheshire, a living presented to him by his cousin Dr John Bird Sumner, Bishop of Chester, where in the same year Bird's sister, Henrietta, was born.