GEORGE BENTHAM. 1 



George 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.) 



