Withering, William (1741-1799)

British plants. According to the arrangement of Doctor Withering. Begun August 18th, 1827. A collection of mounted water-colour drawings of plants, mostly four to a page: the names are in Latin and English, and the date of flowering, etc. is given. A note pasted on to the last leaf of the index by the copyist is dated December, 1832, and gives the number of 'Flowers drawn' as 540.

1827-32

1 volume 204 pp. + 17 ll. (last 3 bl.). folio. 35 × 271/2 cm. Original quarter-calf binding, damaged.

Purchased 1925.

William Withering was a physician, botanist and mineralogist. He obtained his M.D. at Edinburgh in 1766 and was later chief physician to the Birmingham General Hospital. He was elected F.R.S. in 1784, and had published his 'Botanical arrangement of all vegetables naturally growing in Great Britain' in 1776: this contained a description of 1297 plants [see the Dictionary of National Biography].

Database description transcribed from S.A.J. Moorat, Catalogue of Western Manuscripts on Medicine and Science in the Wellcome Historical Medical Library (London: Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, 1962-1973).