Old Billy
Longest-living horse on record
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Old Billy (also called Billy or Ol' Billy) was the longest-living horse on record, verified to have lived 62 years.[1] He was born in Woolston, Cheshire, England, in 1760.[2] Billy became a barge horse, pulling barges along canals. He was described as resembling a large cob/shire horse, brown in color with a white blaze.[3]
Billy died on 27 November 1822 at the estate of William Earle, a director of the Mersey and Irwell Navigation Company, in Everton, Liverpool.[4][5]
Billy's skull now resides in the Manchester Museum.[6] A lithograph shows Old Billy with Squire Henry Harrison, who had "known the animal for fifty-nine years", and a portrait of him is held at the Warrington Museum & Art Gallery.[7] Billy's taxidermied head was returned to Warrington from Bedford Art Gallery & Museum in July 2024, after a team of local artists established a 'Bring Back Old Billy Committee!'.[8]
