Antonio Brady

Sir Antonio Brady (10 November 1811 – 12 December 1881) was an English naturalist, social reformer and British Admiralty official.

The establishment of the Plaistow and Victoria Dock Mission, the East London Museum at Bethnal Green, and the West Ham and Stratford Dispensary was in a great measure due to him.

So long ago as 1844 his attention had been attracted to the wonderful deposits of brickearth which occupy the valley of the Roding at Ilford, within a mile of his residence.

Encouraged by Professor Owen he commenced collecting the rich series of mammalian remains in the brickearths of the Thames valley, comprising amongst others the skeletons of the tiger, wolf, bear, elephant, rhinoceros, horse, elk, stag, bison, ox, hippopotamus, &c. This valuable collection of pleistocene mammalia is now in the Natural History Museum.

[2] In his Catalogue of Pleistocene Mammalia from Ilford, Essex, 1874, printed for private circulation only, Brady acknowledges his indebtedness to Mr. William Davies, F.G.S., his instructor in the art of preserving fossil bones.