Cherry Kearton

Richard and Cherry Kearton, 1890s

Cherry Kearton (1871–1940) was born in the small Yorkshire Dales (Swaledale) village of Thwaite, North Riding of Yorkshire, England, and was one of the world's earliest wildlife photographers and writers. He first married Mary Burwood Coates, with whom he had a son, also named Cherry, and a daughter, Nina. He later married Ada Forrest, a South African opera singer, in 1922. He died in 1940 after reading for the BBC's Children's Hour. The Royal Geographical Society's Cherry Kearton Medal and Award was created in his honour.^[1]

Photography

Cherry Kearton was a great animal photographer. In the summer of 1896 he and his brother Richard Kearton (1862–1928), a naturalist,^[2] reached the Outer Hebridean islands of St Kilda and many other remote places. Three years later their famous book With Nature and a Camera, illustrated by 160 photographs, was published in London by Cassell & Co.

Films

With the advent of moving pictures the Kearton brothers went their separate ways and Cherry moved into the field of wildlife documentary film making. He directed the following films:

• A Primitive Man's Career to Civilization (1911)
• Roosevelt in Africa (1910)

References

• Kearton's Wildlife, part of the series Nation on Film BBC Two 26 February 2007
• Direct From Nature: The Photographic Work of Richard & Cherry Kearton by John Bevis. 2007, ISBN 978-0-9537048-6-6
• Watch the Birdie by W R Mitchell, published 2001 by Castelberg

External links

• With nature and a camera – Full text of book by Richard Kearton
• Cherry Kearton at the Internet Movie Database
• Kearton, Cherry, – Biodiversity Heritage Library