HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. lxi. 



finding it near Malham Tarn, when in the company of two 

 other Todmorden botanists, John Howarth and William 

 Greenwood. These three, and also Gibson, contributed 

 numerous species to the list of mosses in Baines' Flora of 

 Yorkshire, and when this was re- written by Mr. J. G. Baker 

 in 1854, Nowell was entrusted with the production of the 

 second part of the " Supplement " dealing with the mosses of 

 the county. His help is again acknowledged in the Flora of 

 the West Riding (1862), where in the Introduction to the 

 Cryptogamia, Dr. Carrington writes : — " To my friend, Mr. 

 J. Nowell, of Todmorden, I owe special thanks. There are 

 few districts of Yorkshire, or the adjacent counties, with the 

 varieties of which he has not become acquainted during his 

 long and useful life, and I paid my first visit to many of the 

 stations recorded below under his guidance." 



Nowell enjoyed the friendship of most of the bryologists of 

 his day. He was visited at Todmorden by Dr. Schimper, of 

 Strassburg, and his correspondence with W. Wilson is 

 preserved in the Botanical Department of the British Museum. 

 The generic name Nowellia w r as chosen in his honour. 



The Todmorden Botanical Society was founded in 1852 

 mainly by the efforts of John Nowell and Abraham Stansfield, 

 the latter being the first President. Abraham 

 Abraham Stansfield was born January 12th, 1802, at 

 Stansfield. Hugeon Croft near Shore, in Stansfield, and 

 after a short time spent at a day school in Shore 

 he went to weave. Removing to Stones-bottom he became 

 acquainted with Nowell. Some verses written by him 

 attracted the attention of Mr. Ramsbottom of Centre Vale, 

 and led to his being appointed gardener at Centre Vale. In 

 1844 he started as a nurseryman on his own account at Vale 

 Gardens, Todmorden, and after some years took his sons, 

 Thomas and Abraham, into partnership. The Stansfields 

 devoted their attention to varieties of British Ferns, and built 

 up both a reputation and a large business in that line. Judg- 

 ing from the many varieties of ferns enumerated by them in 

 Miall and Carrington's Flora, their cultivated forms must have 

 been largely derived from the varieties to be obtained so 

 abundantly in the Vale of Todmorden. The father contributed 

 a chapter on botany to " A History of the Forest of Rossen- 

 dale " (1868). He died on August 15th, 1880, at Todmorden, 

 in Cheshire, and there is a memorial notice of him in the 

 Gardeners'' Chronicle for 1880, ii. 283, and another account in 



