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History
John Robert Mortimer was born on 15 June 1825 in Fimber, a village in the East Riding of Yorkshire, and educated at the village school in Fridaythorpe. He started a business as a corn merchant in Fimber, later moving to Driffield where he remained for the rest of his life.
Mortimer's interest in scientific enquiry was inspired by the Great Exhibition of 1851. Later visits to Edward Tindall's archaeological and geological collections at Bridlington spurred him to develop a collection of his own, indeed he purchased one of his first specimens from Tindall. At first he collected chalk fossils and flint implements from the Yorkshire wolds, training the local farm workers to recognise any potential specimens for himself and the small band of other collectors in the neighbourhood. However competition for collecting grew with other enthusiasts descending on the area and paying the same farm workers to find material for them instead. Faced with a dearth of material, particularly those which were archaeological in nature, Mortimer turned to excavation himself - concentrating on Bronze Age burial mounds.
Concerned that other local collections were being sold to or broken up by collectors outside of the area, Mortimer offered his collection at half its value to East Riding county council. The local council were not keen, but with the aid of Colonel G H Clarke the collection was purchased in its entirety in 1914, where the majority of it is still held by Hull Museum. Mortimer died in 1911.