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XIX. Biographical Memoirs of several Norwich Botanists, in a Letter 

 to Alexander MacLeay, Esq. Sec. L.S. 



By James Edward Smith, M.D. F.R.S. P. L.S. 



Read January 17, 1804. 

 DEAR SIR, Norwich, Jan. 14, 1804. 



1 he recent death of one of my oldest botanical friends, who has 

 long been a Fellow of the Linnean Society, has suggested some 

 recollections to me which may not be altogether uninteresting, and 

 which 1 beg the favour of you to communicate to the Society. 



Mr. John Pitchford, whose name is well known to all who are 

 conversant with the botany of England, died here on the 22d of 

 December 1803, aged 66 years. He had long practised as a sur- 

 geon and apothecary in this town and neighbourhood, especially 

 among the catholics, being himself of that persuasion. His moral 

 character and truly christian spirit would have done honour to any 

 church or sect, and he has left five children to lament the loss 

 of a most indulgent father. I could add more on this subject, 

 but his scientific character is more especially my present object. 



Mr. Pitchford was the last of a school of botanists in this town, 

 among whom the writings and merits of Linnaeus were perhaps 

 more early, or at least more philosophically, studied and appre- 

 ciated, than in any other part of Britain. Norwich had long, in- 

 deed, been conspicuous for the love of plants. A play is extant, 

 called Rhodon and Iris, which was presented at the florist's feast 

 in Norwich, and printed in 1637. The taste for the cultivation 

 of flowers was, probably, imported from Flanders, along with our 



worsted 



