BAKER : FATHERS OF YORKSHIRE BOTANY. 1 95 



The two other botanists of that epoch who were connected 

 with the county whom I must mention are Thomas Knowlton 

 and Samuel Brewer. Knowlton had been in the early part of 

 bis life gardener to Dr. Sherard. He came to Yorkshire and 

 settled at Londesborough in the service of the Earl of Burlington. 

 _ He was not a roan of much education, but was a good practical 

 botanist and gardener, and he has placed on record several 

 localities for rare plants in the East Riding and in Craven. He 

 was a frequent correspondent of Dr. Richardson's, and there is 

 an amusing letter from him, written in the year 1736, grumbling 

 about the innovations proposed by Linnaeus : — 'As for Linnaeus' 

 new method 'tis imposable for him or any other man whatsoever 

 to go beyond a Ray, a Tournefort, etc., who have chose the flower 

 and fruit, which are the princepily parts ; as to a single part of 

 the flower it is, in my opinion, altogether whimsicall and 

 ridiculous, separated from the whole composure of them.' He 

 lived to the age of 90, and died in 1782. After him is named 

 Knowltonia^ a Cape genus of Ranunculacese allied to Helleborus. 



Samuel Brewer was a native of Wiltshire, in early life con- 

 nected with the West of England cloth manufacture. He 

 travelled widely through England and Wales in search of plants, 

 sending his discoveries to Dillenius. He planned and nearly 

 finished a book called the ' Botanists' Guide,' but it was never 

 published. He lived for some time at Bangor, and was the first 

 to gather many of the Welsh rarities. He lived in Yorkshire 

 from 1727 for about ten years. He was not a good tempered 

 nor a successful man, and his letters to Richardson are full of 

 complaints. After him are named Helianthevium Breweri and 

 the genus Breweria in Convolvulacese. 



To linnaeus botany owed such an immense impulse, both as 

 regards its organisation and popularisation, that one is aptto forget 

 sometimes how many and what hard working writers and col- 

 lectors preceded him. He was born in Sweden, in 1 707, his father 

 being a clergyman in such poor circumstances that when he 

 sent his son to college he could only allow him eight pounds a 

 year to cover all his expenses. At the age of twenty he was 



