John Percy, ‘Scientists in Humble Life: The Artisan Naturalists of South Lancashire’ in ‘Manchester Region History Review’, Vol. Leo Hartley Grindon, ‘Manchester Walks & Wild-Flowers: An introduction to the botany and rural beauty of the district.’ 2nd ed. Includes a short autobiography of the author.

Richard Buxton, ‘A Botanical Guide to the Flowering Plants, Ferns, Mosses, and Algae, Found Indigenous Within Sixteen Miles of Manchester: With Some Information as to Their Agricultural, Medicinal, and Other Uses’.

What factors might have contributed to this? Additional Resources The majority of 19th-century botanists were male. Why did botany appeal to different social groups?Ĭonsider the relationship between herbalism, gardening and botany. The stained-glass Shakespeare Window at Manchester Central Library was bequeathed in memory of Leo Hartley Grindon by his widow, Rosa. The dried plant samples of Leo Hartley Grindon and Charles Bailey are among the foundation collections of Manchester Museum Herbarium. Plaque on the wall of the Railway & Naturalist Inn in Prestwich. Their occupations, as recorded by Buxton, include: gardener, weaver, shoemaker, blacksmith, saddler, mechanic, bleacher and twister-in.

The book was accompanied by ‘A Brief Memoir of the Author’, which provides an excellent overview of the network of “botanists in humble life”. Encouraged by his friends to share his botanical knowledge, Buxton published ‘A Botanical Guide to the Flowering Plants, Ferns, Mosses, and Algae, Found Indigenous Within Sixteen Miles of Manchester’ (1849). Richard Buxton’s association with other amateur botanists began following a chance encounter on Kersal Moor (1826) with John Horsfield, weaver and founder of the Prestwich Botanical Society. For the payment of a small, monthly membership fee, members could pool knowledge, share reference books and contribute specimens to the society’s herbarium. Sunday botanical meetings in public houses date back to the second half of the 18th-century. vi)Īlthough searching for, recording and collecting plant specimens might be seen as a solitary pursuit, individuals often sought the company of fellow enthusiasts. (Richard Buxton, ‘A Botanical Guide …’ (1849), p. it has frequently been the custom to collect specimens to such an extent, as to destroy the plant.” While recognising that collections of dried specimens were “essential for the study of the structure and character of plants”, he also acknowledged the ecological impact of over-collecting: Buxton, who likened dried specimens to “pallid corpses”, preferred “to observe living plants on the spots where they grew”. His book study informed his observations in the field, as he wandered “hundreds of miles” on botanical excursions. This inspired the purchase of Culpepper’s ‘Herbal’, followed by William Meyrick’s ‘New Family Herbal’, from which Buxton learned the Linnaean system of classification.ĭespite “disadvantages and difficulties”, including limited time and money, Buxton purchased further scientific works to develop his understanding of the “anatomy, physiology, and structure of plants”. During country walks with his employer, to collect ingredients for “diet drinks”, Buxton often encountered unfamiliar plants. Like many working-class naturalists, his interest in botany developed from a familiarity with herbalism. R159488 Richard Buxton and the Artisan BotanistsĪn archetype of the South Lancashire autodidact, Richard Buxton, a Manchester shoemaker, taught himself to read at the age of sixteen.

Pages from Leo Hartley Grindon’s interleaved copy of ‘Flora Mancuniensis’, including his handwritten field notes.

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