Background
John Hillaby was born on July 24, 1917. Son of Albert Ewart Hillaby (Yorkshire printer) and Mabel Colyer.
John Hillaby was born on July 24, 1917. Son of Albert Ewart Hillaby (Yorkshire printer) and Mabel Colyer.
John was educated at Woodhouse Grove school, Leeds, from where he made his early countryside excursions.
Hillaby worked for local newspapers in the United Kingdom before World War II. During World War II, he served in the British Royal Artillery. In 1944, he became a broadcaster and also wrote articles for magazines. During the 1950s, he served the Manchester Guardian as zoological correspondent (1949), the New York Times as science writer (from 1951), and as a consultant for New Scientist (from 1953). Hillaby was a director of the Universities Federation of Animal Welfare, and a frequent broadcaster on radio and television. In 1973 was appointed Woodward Lecturer at Yale University. He lived in York for the last four years of his life. He died in York on 19 October 1996.
Quotes from others about the person
Douglas Matthews: "John Hillaby had an unobtrusive but committed religious belief, and at the same time was a man with a huge relish for life, gregarious, generous, and endlessly interested in everything. He was passionate about the natural world, and thrilled to its diversity. Once, visiting Cuckmere Haven with him, I saw him ecstatic when he caught sight of a kingfisher plunging into tidal waters, something he had only heard about, half-disbelieving, but was now witnessing for himself. It was this sense of delighted wonder that he was able to convey to the world, directly as a companion as well as through his writings".
In 1940, John married, first, Eleanor Riley, with whom he had two daughters, though their marriage was later dissolved. His second wife was Thelma Gordon, they married in 1966, but in l972 his second wife died from cancer in 1972. Hillaby was deeply affected by Thelma's death, but he was a companionable man, and in 1981 he married his third wife Kathleen Burton. She accompanied him on his travels and appears as a cheerful, practical figure in several of his subsequent books.