Old Billy

Old Billy was the longest-living horse on record. Old Billy was verified to be 62 at his death. Born in Woolston, Cheshire, England in 1760, Billy adventured and became a barge horse that pulled barges up and down canals. Old Billy was said to look like a big cob/shire horse, and was brown with a white blaze. Billy died on 27 November 1822 at the estate of William Earle, a director of the Mersey and Irwell Navigation Company, in Everton, Liverpool.
Billy's skull now resides in the Manchester Museum. A lithograph was published, showing 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]. Billy's taxidermied head was returned to Warrington from The [Higgins Art Gallery & Museum|Bedford Art Gallery & Museum] in July 2024, after a team of local artists set up a 'Bring Back Old Billy Committee'.