Robert Law was born in Hollingworth, Walsden, the youngest of 10 children of John Law.
As a child, he worked in the cotton mills and became interested in natural history, fossils, geology, and taxidermy.
He was a late-learner and attended evening classes for a time.
He left night school and became something of a tearaway
[having fallen] in with companions whose bent of mind was totally different from his own ... and gradually drifted into a channel which, had it been continued, might have led to ruin and disgrace ... he lost every desire to follow up his literary and scientific interests, and led a wild and reckless life, which made him quite notorious in the district. At length, he got tired in this loose kind of life ... and shook off his old associates
and returned to evening classes.
He joined Walsden Working Men's Institute and Todmorden Scientific Association.
He qualified as a teacher and taught in the Science & Art Department at the Walsden Institute [1878]. In 1879, he taught a geology class in Todmorden.
He was a member of the Todmorden Scientific Association.
His interest in early man took him throughout Britain, and to North America and Canada.
In 1886, he was elected a Fellow of the Geological Society of London.
On 23rd July 1886, he married Elizabeth Ann Blackburn – one of his former students from Halifax, and a teacher with the Halifax School Board – who shared his interests. The couple went to live at Cromwell Terrace, Halifax.
On 7th July 1898, Law, Tattersall Wilkinson and Abraham Crossley opened the Blackheath Barrow.
The family moved to Fennyroyd Hall, Hipperholme which became a museum with his large collection of fossils, rocks and other collections.
In 1902, he was elected a member of the Hipperholme Urban District Council.
He was President of the Hipperholme & Lightcliffe Conservative Association.
He and his wife were buried at Brighouse Cemetery.
His collection of fossils was donated to the Natural History Museum in London
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Malcolm Bull 2017 /
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Revised 14:40 on 14th May 2017 / ww_42 / 6
