Robert Ormston Backhouse 1854–1940 by Vivian Royal Horticultural Society, Lindley Library; photograph National Portrait Gallery, London
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Backhouse family (per. c. 1770–1945), naturalists and horticulturists, came to prominence with James [i] Backhouse (1721–1798), who founded the Backhouse Bank in Darlington, co. Durham, in 1774 with his sons Jonathan (1747–1826) and James [ii] (1757–1804). It was Jonathan Backhouse who initiated the family's connection with horticulture, by following the mid-eighteenth-century fashion for large-scale tree planting on his estates at ...
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Bateman, James (1811–1897), horticulturist and botanist, was born on 18 July 1811 at Redivals, near Bury in Lancashire, the only child of John Bateman (1782–1858), banker, ironfounder, and manufacturer, of Knypersley Hall in Staffordshire and Tolson Hall in Westmorland, and his wife, Elizabeth...
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Bobart [Bobert], Jacob, the elder (c. 1599–1680), botanist and gardener, was born at Brunswick. After a period as a soldier, during which he added a working knowledge of English and Latin to his native tongue, he settled in Oxford, possibly as an innkeeper, before being appointed superintendent of the university's new physic garden, apparently shortly before 1641, by its founder, the ...
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Richard Drayton
Bowie, James (c. 1789–1869), gardener and botanist, was born in London, son of an Oxford Street seedsman. From 1810 he was employed at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. In 1814 he was chosen by Sir Joseph Banks, with Allan Cunningham, to collect plants for ...
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B. D. Jackson
revised by P. E. Kell
Champion, John George (1815–1854), collector of plants and insects, was born on 5 May 1815 at Edinburgh, the eldest son of Major John Carey Champion (d. 1825) of the 21st Royal North Britain fusiliers, and Elizabeth Herries, daughter of William Urquhart of ...
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B. D. Jackson
revised by A. J. Turner
Courten [alias Charleton], William (1642–1702), naturalist and collector, was born in London on 28 March 1642, the son of William Courten, who died insolvent at Florence in 1655, and Lady Katherine Egerton, daughter of John Egerton, first earl of Bridgewater. Sir William Courten (c. 1568–1636)...
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William T. Stearn
Don, George (1798–1856), botanist and plant collector, was born at Doo Hillock, Forfarshire, Scotland, on 17 May 1798, the eldest of the five sons of George Don (1764–1814), clockmaker turned nurseryman, who discovered many highland plants new to Scotland, and principal gardener (1802–6) at the ...
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S. Max Walters
Donn, James (1758–1813), botanist and gardener, was born in Perthshire. He began his horticultural training under William Aiton at Kew, and was appointed curator of the university botanic garden in Cambridge in 1794, in which post he remained until his death in 1813. His name is associated with a remarkable publication, ...
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Clemency Thorne Fisher
Drummond, James (bap. 1787, d. 1863), botanist and collector, was born in Inverarity, Scotland and baptized there on 8 January 1787. He was the elder son of Thomas Drummond, gardener; his younger brother, Thomas Drummond, became a collector of North American plants. Little is known of ...
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Gilmour, John Scott Lennox (1906–1986), botanist and horticulturist, was born on 28 September 1906 at 1 St John's Wood Road, London, the youngest in the family of one daughter and three sons of Thomas Lennox Gilmour, Edinburgh lawyer, and his wife, Elizabeth, daughter of ...
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Michael P. Cooper
Greville, Charles Francis (1749–1809), mineralogist and horticulturist, was born, probably at Warwick Castle, on 12 May 1749, the second son of Francis, eighth Baron Brooke and first earl of Warwick (1719–1773) and his wife, Elizabeth (1720/21–1800), daughter of Lord Archibald Hamilton. His elder brother was ...
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Griffiths [née Rogers], Amelia Warren (1768–1858), phycologist and seaweed collector, was born on 14 January 1768 in Pilton, north Devon, the elder daughter of John and Emily Rogers. On 10 March 1794 she married the Revd William Griffiths, vicar of St Issey, Cornwall...
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Grigor, James (c. 1811–1848), nurseryman and botanist, lived and worked in Old Lakenham, Norwich, Norfolk. He was the author of the Eastern Arboretum, or, Register of Remarkable Trees, Seats, Gardens … in the County of Norfolk (1841), illustrated with fifty etched plates, issued in fifteen numbers. In the preface ...
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E. Charles Nelson
Henry, Augustine (1857–1930), botanical collector and dendrologist, was born on 2 July 1857 in Dundee, the first of six children of Bernard Henry (c.1825–1891) and Mary MacNamee. His father, at one time a gold-prospector in California and Australia, was a native of the townland of ...
