William Edwin Brooks (30 July 1828 near Dublin, Ireland – 18 January 1899 in Mount Forest, Ontario) was a civil engineer in India and an ornithologist. He later settled in Canada where his son Allan Cyril Brooks also became an ornithologist and bird artist of repute. Brooks was a pioneer of identifying species by their calls and he described several new species, particularly warblers in collaboration with Allan Octavian Hume. Brooks's leaf warbler is named after him.

Life and work

Brooks was born in Ireland although his parents were from Northumberland. His father was a noted engineer William Alexander Brooks (25 March 1802 – 26 January 1877) who had worked on the Panama Canal with Ferdinand de Lesseps during which project he died at Paya near the Isthmus of Darien. His mother was Mary Eliza née Beale. Brooks was interested in birds from a young age and was a friend of Albany and John Hancock. A bird specimen in the Hancock museum was collected by Brooks in 1854. William Edwin Brooks went to India in 1856 as a civil engineer with the railways and stayed on until 1881 and was posted in Etawah from 1868 to 1880. His wife Mary Jane Renwick (married at Calcutta, 1859) from Newcastle upon Tyne was frail and suffered from poor health in India. It was hoped that she would recover her health with a move to Canada but she died shortly after the family (including three sons and two daughters) reached Quebec. The family initially settled in Ontario, Canada. Brooks was an honorary member of the British Ornithological Union. He corresponded with Alfred Russel Wallace, Thomas C. Jerdon and Robert Christopher Tytler. His vast collection of bird specimens is at the British Museum and during his career in India, he corresponded actively with other ornithologists in the region, notably Allan Octavian Hume. He also corresponded with ornithologists in Britain, including Henry Eeles Dresser, and sent many specimens to Dresser to distribute and trade with other ornithologists on his behalf. Brooks had always hoped that one of his children would take to natural history. His third son Allan Brooks, named after Hume, was sent to study in England and during his stay in Northumberland he trained under his father's close friend, John Hancock. Allan became an ornithologist and artist of repute in Canada. In 1887, Brooks moved his family from Milton, Ontario, to a new farm at Chilliwack, British Columbia. In 1891, he sold the Chilliwack property to return to Ontario where he bought a farm in Mount Forest. Brooks was admired by later workers for his careful observations and notes on the vocalizations of warblers. He was among the first to suggest that each species of warbler had a distinctive call. Phylloscopus subviridis, first described by Brooks (in the genus Reguloides) is referred to as Brooks' leaf warbler. Brooks was a devout Christian and an anti-evolutionist unlike his son Allan.

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