He worked as a shoemaker and cobbler in Birmingham and took to natural history possibly in 1814 or after a doctor told him to walk in the countryside for health around 1818.
He began to put together a collection of butterflies and other natural history specimens which grew so much that by 1828 he began a small museum at his premises on 38 New Street, moving later to the Associate Artists Institution on Temple Street.
The museum closed by 1841 when Weaver moved to Worcester and he returned to Birmingham the next year.
He made trips to Scotland in search of rare specimens such as the Arran brown[2] and traded insects for bird skins and corresponded with other naturalists including James Charles Dale.
[4] Weaver suffered from asthma through his life and died after a short illness.