Richard Buxton

Richard Buxton at the age of 65. Daguerreotype made by John Benjamin Dancer.

Richard Buxton (born January 15, 1786 in Prestwich , Lancashire , † January 2, 1865 in Ardwick , now part of Manchester ) was a British shoemaker and amateur botanist . His family lived simple circumstances. He taught himself to read and learned the basics of botany . Although he was a poor man for most of his life, in 1849 he published a book called A Botanical Guide to the Flowering Plants, Ferns, Mosses and Algæ, Found Indigenous Within Sixteen Miles of Manchester , which was a standard work on the at the time flora spread around Manchester. According to his obituary in the Journal of Botany, British and Foreign , Buxton was one of the "gentlemen of nature" of his time and "his faithful and correct pronunciation of scientific terms made many who heard him believe that he was an able classical scholar." The geologist Edward William Binney recognized him as "the most profound thinker in his class".

Childhood and youth

Richard Buxton was born on January 15, 1786, the second of seven children at Sedgley Hall Farm in Prestwich Ward, near Manchester, Lancashire. His parents were John and Anne Buxton (nee Houghton) who were both from Derbyshire . When he was two years old, the family began to have a difficult time. They left their farm and moved to Bond Street in the Ancoats neighborhood of Manchester. John Buxton worked as a worker for the rest of his life.

Veronica chamaedrys (Germander speedwell, also known as Männertreu)

Richard was a sickly child and the difficult situation of his parents meant that his schooling remained somewhat sporadic. At a young age he wandered the fields and brickworks near his home, picking wildflowers. His favorite flowers were Faithful Men , Creeping cinquefoil, and Chickweed . At the age of twelve he was apprenticed to a bat maker, a shoemaker for children's leather shoes, named James Heap on Port Street in Manchester. About 18 months later he started working for James Hyde, with whom he stayed for several years.

Next life

Buxton could not read or write at the age of 16, but taught himself to read using the Common Spelling Book . He couldn't understand all the words or pronounce them correctly, so he got hold of a copy of Jones' Pronouncing Dictionary . He read other books such as A History of England and Goldsmith's History of Greece and Rome . Reading occupied all of his free time, but when business was good, he had to work from 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. He was earning around 14 to 15 shillings a week, a good salary for the time, but since leather was being replaced by fabric as the upper for children's shoes, that didn't last.

When he was 18 years old, Buxton went back to work for his former master, James Heap, now as a journeyman . Heap often took Buxton on long country walks in his spare time. The two gathered herbs for medicinal drinks for Heap himself and for his neighbors. They often found plants whose names they didn't know, so Buxton bought a copy of Culpeper's Complete Herbal . However, he found the alleged medicinal properties of the plants abstruse and the descriptions flawed, so that he was soon dissatisfied with the book. In 1808 he acquired a copy of Meyrick's Herbal , which was better, and from which he appropriated the basic principles of the binary nomenclature from Carl von Linné . Soon Buxton could not learn anything new from this book, and he began to borrow or buy as many books on botany as he could. It was customary among botanists to collect and dry plants, but since he disliked dead plants and preferred not to pick plants that others could enjoy, his botanical studies were limited to observational studies.

"True, the pursuit of Botany has not yielded me much money - but what, in my opinion is far better, it has preserved my health, if not my life, and afforded me a fair share of happiness."

"It's true, botany didn't make me a lot of money, but what I think is much better, it kept my health, if not my life, and brought me a decent amount of happiness."

- Richard Buxton

From 1821 to 1826 his work kept him from botanical forays, but in the spring of 1826 he went on more frequent excursions. In June of the same year he met John Horsefield , a Whitefield weaver who was chairman of the Prestwich Botanical Society and the General Botanical Meetings held in various locations in Lancashire , while "botanizing" on Kersal Moor, a raised bog near Manchester were. Buxton had long wanted to meet someone like Horsefield, who was not only a rural herbalist but also had an excellent scientific knowledge of botany. At that time, many working-class amateur naturalists were enjoying their spare time in Lancashire and a number of local societies had been established. Horsefield introduced Buxton to other botanists in the area, including James Percival, Thomas Heywood and John Shaw. With Horsefield he went on a series of excursions to Mere Clough in Prestwich, Clifton Moss and Baguley Moor in the summer of 1826.

For various reasons Buxton neglected his botanical studies for several years, but in 1833 he went to a meeting of botanists in Prestwich, where he met his old acquaintances. He was now again regularly attending local botany meetings, and it was at one such meeting in Blackley that he met James Crowther. The two became steadfast friends and explored Chorlton, Withington, Didsbury and many other areas in Lancashire, Cheshire , Derbyshire , Yorkshire and Wales in search of plants .

In 1839 Buxton received an invitation to take the natural history course at the Mechanics' Institute of Manchester, an institution for adult education for technical workers. There he helped together with Leopold Hartley Grindon, George Crozier and James Crowther in the creation of Flora Mancuniensis (1840), which was published by John Bland Wood. He became a recognized expert on mosses, and William Hooker , director of Kew Gardens , was so impressed with his skills that he hoped to hire him as herbarium assistant. It did not come to that, but Hooker gave Buxton a number of books on botany and eventually accepted the post of chairman of the Manchester Working Men's Botanical Society.

In 1849, at the age of 62, he published a book, A Botanical Guide to the Flowering Plants, Ferns, Mosses and Algæ, Found Indigenous Within Sixteen Miles of Manchester , which he authored with the assistance of other local botanists and geologist Edward William Binney would have. The book gives a complete description of all the plants that were widespread in the area at the time and contains poetic sprinkles as well as some autobiographical details. It encourages other members of the working class "in the summer time" to explore the "many wonderful footpaths along pleasant streams and through green forests" and asks landowners to "at least preserve the old footpaths through their fields and forests when creating new paths." should refuse ”.

When Buxton's business suffered a decline, he tried to survive as a botanical plant collector and newspaper deliverer, but eventually had to fall back on a fund set up by Binney for "the support and advancement of scientific men from humble backgrounds". His situation was made worse when the revenue from the second edition of his book, published in 1859, was less than expected because of competition with the publication of Leopold Hartley Grindon's The Manchester Flora that year.

Richard Buxton's grave

Buxton died on January 2nd, 1865 on Limekiln Lane in Ardwick, now part of Manchester, at the age of 78 and was buried on January 5th in the Church of St Mary the Virgin, Prestwich. In his obituary in the Manchester Courier , an unnamed "great man of science" described him as "probably one of the best British botanists in the field of flowering plants that Lancashire produced".

Author abbreviation

For Richard Buxton, the author's abbreviation "Buxton" is used when a botanical name is listed.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Anonymous (1865). Berthold Seemann, ed. Journal of Botany, British and Foreign III . Robert Hardwicke. P. 71.
2. ^ Cash, James (2011) [1873]: Where There's a Will, There's a Way !: Or, Science in the Cottage; An Account of the Labors of Naturalists in Humble Life. Cambridge University Press. P. 94, ISBN 1-108-03790-9
3. ↑ Buxton, Richard (1849): A Botanical Guide to the Flowering Plants, Ferns, Mosses and Algæ found Indigenous within Sixteen Miles of Manchester. London: Longman and Co., S.iii
4. ↑ Buxton, Richard (1849): A Botanical Guide to the Flowering Plants, Ferns, Mosses and Algæ found Indigenous within Sixteen Miles of Manchester. London: Longman and Co., S.iii
5. ↑ Buxton, Richard (1849): A Botanical Guide to the Flowering Plants, Ferns, Mosses and Algæ found Indigenous within Sixteen Miles of Manchester. London: Longman and Co., S.iv
6. ↑ Buxton, Richard (1849): A Botanical Guide to the Flowering Plants, Ferns, Mosses and Algæ found Indigenous within Sixteen Miles of Manchester. London: Longman and Co., S.iv
7. ↑ Buxton, Richard (1849): A Botanical Guide to the Flowering Plants, Ferns, Mosses and Algæ found Indigenous within Sixteen Miles of Manchester. London: Longman and Co., S.iv
8. ^ Buxton, Richard (1849): A Botanical Guide to the Flowering Plants, Ferns, Mosses and Algæ found Indigenous within Sixteen Miles of Manchester. London: Longman and Co., Sv
9. ↑ Buxton, Richard (1849): A Botanical Guide to the Flowering Plants, Ferns, Mosses and Algæ found Indigenous within Sixteen Miles of Manchester. London: Longman and Co., S.vi
10. ^ John Percy: Scientists in humble life; the artisan naturalists of South Lancashire . Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester. Archived from the original on September 24, 2015 Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (Accessed November 14, 2013). 
11. ↑ Buxton, Richard (1849): A Botanical Guide to the Flowering Plants, Ferns, Mosses and Algæ found Indigenous within Sixteen Miles of Manchester. London: Longman and Co., pp. Vi-viii
12. ↑ Buxton, Richard (1849): A Botanical Guide to the Flowering Plants, Ferns, Mosses and Algæ found Indigenous within Sixteen Miles of Manchester. London: Longman and Co., S.viii
13. ^ Secord, Anne (2004), “Buxton, Richard (1786–1865)”, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , Oxford University Press
14. ^ "The Manchester Working Men's Botanical Society". The Manchester Guardian . April 9, 1877.
15. ↑ Buxton, Richard (1849): A Botanical Guide to the Flowering Plants, Ferns, Mosses and Algæ found Indigenous within Sixteen Miles of Manchester. London: Longman and Co., S.xiii
16. ^ Secord, Anne (2004), “Buxton, Richard (1786–1865)”, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , Oxford University Press
17. ^ Secord, Anne (2004), “Buxton, Richard (1786–1865)”, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , Oxford University Press
18. ↑ Anonymous (1865): "Obituary". The Gentleman's Magazine 218 . P. 259.
19. ↑ International Plant Names Index (IPNI): "Author Details. Buxton, Richard (1786-1865) "