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JOHN WHITEHEAD. 



After a time Whitehead gave up cotton-spinuing, and obtained 

 employment with a Mr. Ashtou, a master builder in Oldham, who, 

 himself a botanist, helped and encouraged Whitehead in many 

 ways, and took him on excursions to Wales aud Scotland. White- 

 head availed himself to the full of the opportunities afforded him by 

 these and later excursions, and added much to our knowledge of 

 British mosses ; in 1875 he collected on Ben Nevis Junijennannia 

 neviceiisis, a species new to science. In 1887 he contributed Lanca- 

 shire and Cheshire specimens to Dr. Braithwaite's Spluuinacea; 

 Exsiccata : it is from a photograph sent by Whitehead to Dr. 

 Braithwaite about this period that our portrait is taken. His 



correspondence with English bryologists was somewhat extensive; 

 and his letters in the Wilson correspondence show considerable 

 critical knowledge. Mr. J. A. Wheldon writes : ' ' My correspondence 

 with Whitehead covers a period of about twelve years. I made his 

 personal acquaintance about four years before his death. His activity 

 as a field botanist had then given way to rheumatic troubles, the 

 penalty of frequent inclement weather in his search after his beloved 

 mosses. The first time I called upon him I found him residing in 

 Oldham in a small house such as usually occupied by respectable 

 artizans. He was not well enough to go out, but he welcomed me 

 as an old correspondent very cordially. With the usual hearty 

 hospitality of Lancashire folk, he urged me to stay for tea, which 

 I drank with his wife and him. On the table was a saucer con- 

 taining several mosses floated out, which he informed me he had 

 been showing to some of the members of the local Botanical Society, 



