Walter Leo Hildburgh (1876-1955) was an American art collector, sportsman, traveller, scientist and philanthropist.
[2] Hildburgh was also an active sportsman: he become an international-level figure-skater and swimmer and, later in life, served as a judge at the 1931 World Figure Skating Championships.
Through his travels he began collecting: not only metalwork, decorative arts and sculpture but also folkloric objects such as amulets, which he bought up in "vast numbers".
[2] By the time he was based in London, Hildburgh had begun to publish articles on his interests, particularly around the history of the applied arts.
[9] In 1950, he presented incomplete set of copies of his articles to the Society's library, with a list of them in its journal Folklore later the same year.