ROYAL BOTANIC GARDENS, KEW. 



BULLETIN 



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MISCELLANEOUS INFORMATIOiN 



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No. 10] 



[1*J15 



XLIV.—JOHN MEDLEY WOOD. 



1827-19.15. 



Wo regret to record tlie death of Dr. John Medley A\'ood, 

 A.L.S., late Director of the IS'atal Herbarium, Durban, Natal, 

 on August 2Gth last, at the ri^ie age of 87 years and 8 months. 



Dr. Wood was an old and valued eorrespouclent of the Royal 

 Botanic Gardens, Kow, which he enriched with many living 

 and dried i^lants, and it is to his efforts more than to those of any 

 other single collector that so much is known of the Plora of 

 Katal. His loss will be felt not alone by Kew, but also by 

 many other botanical establishments throno;hout the world. 



He was born at Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, on December 1st, 

 1827, in the reign of George lY., and has therefore lived under 

 the rule of five Sovereigns. He was the son of Mr. James 

 Eiddall Wood, at that time a naval officer, and in due course 

 became so enamoured of the sea that he joined the East Indian 

 merchant service, in which he attained to the rank of chief 

 ofiicer. Although a sailor, he was in London only once in his 

 life. In a letter to the writer received in 1900 he said : " I 

 tbiuk it was in 185U I reached London from the Chincha 

 Islands in the good ship Cordelia, of which I was second 

 officer; we discharged cargo in the "West India Dock and left 

 again for Liverpool. During the time I was there I only left the 

 dock once, that was on a Sunday "morning, to take a young lad 

 to meet his father at an hotel in (I thinkj Newgate Street. I 

 found the place and then returned to the ship, so I did not 

 see much of what Cobbett called thr. "Great Wen," and after 

 50 years in quiet Natal I do not think I should feel at all at 

 home in such a busy place." He also mentions that his ship, 

 the Condelia/ was in the Hoogly when Sir Joseph Hooker 

 went to India with Lord Dalhousie, and he saw the party land. 

 After nearlviseven years of the sea, he went to Natal, arriving 

 at Durban on Mav'lth, 1852, where he joined his father, who 

 h-ul also left the 'sea, and was then practising as n solicitor, 

 and who was the first deputy sheriff in Natal. Fpon anival, 

 after tramping for some distance the sand and bush that at 

 tliat period formed the 'Coast region, Wood said he was not going 



(4181.) Wt. 153-601. 1,125. 12/15. J/T.&S. G. U. 



