GEORGE BENTHAM.! 
GrorGE BENTHAM, one of the most distinguished botanists 
of the present century, and at the time of his death one of the 
oldest, was born at Stoke, a suburb of Portsmouth, September 
22,1800. He died at his house, No. 25 Wilton Place, Lon- 
don, on the 10th of September, 1884, a few days short of 
eighty-four years old. His paternal grandfather, Jeremiah 
Bentham, a London attorney or solicitor, had two sons, who 
both became men of mark, Jeremy and Samuel. The latter 
and younger had two sons, only one of whom, the subject of 
this memoir, lived to manhood. George Bentham’s mother 
was a daughter of Dr. George Fordyce, a Scottish physician 
who settled in London, was a Fellow of the Royal Society, a 
lecturer on chemistry, and the author of some able medical 
works, also of a treatise upon Agriculture and Vegetation. 
It was from his mother that George Bentham early imbibed 
a fondness for botany. 
The early part of his life and education was somewhat 
eventful and peculiar, and in strong contrast with the later. 
His father, General, subsequently Sir Samuel Bentham, was 
an adept in naval architecture. At the age of twenty-two he 
visited the arsenals of the Baltic for the improvement of his 
knowledge; thence he traveled far into Siberia. He became 
intimate with Prince Potemkin, by whom he was induced to 
enter the civil and afterwards the military service of the Em- 
press Catharine. He took part in a naval action against the 
Turks on the Black Sea, and was rewarded with the command 
of a regiment stationed in Siberia, with which he traversed 
the country even to the frontiers of China. After ten years 
he returned to England, where his inventive skill and expe- 
rience found a fitting field in the service of the Admiralty, in 
1 Proceedings American Academy of Arts and Science, xx. 527. (1884.) 
