200 YORKSHIRE NATURALISTS UNION. 



originality and vivacity, but his general ideas on systematic 

 botany would, if carried out, have entirely upset our received 

 arrangements, and he quarrelled with and criticised spitefully 

 the cotemporary leaders of the science. 



Dr. John Fothergill was a man of very different character. 

 He was a staunch member of the society of Friends, and took 

 a leading part in managing its affairs and founding the large 

 School at Ackworth, of which the centenary has lately been 

 held. He was the son of a yeoman-farmer in Wensleydale. 

 Adopting medicine as his profession he studied at Edinburgh 

 and took his degree, and after travelling on the continent, 

 settled in London. He gradually made his way to the fore- 

 most rank in his profession, and was able to spend each year 

 in philanthropy and science a large sum of money. He had 

 a beautiful garden in Essex, a catalogue of which was published, 

 and he was the first to introduce into England a large number 

 of plants and shubs, especially from the United States. On 

 the occasion of the Ackworth anniversary a full and interesting 

 account of his biography was drawn up and circulated by my 

 friend Mr. J. H. Tuke. 



My remarks have extended so far that I must deal vgry 

 briefly with the early cryptogamists of the county. A few 

 species were noted by Ray, and several others were sent to 

 Dillenius by Richardson and Brewer ; then came Sir ^ ^mas 

 Frankland, who collected and made drawings of alg^ at Scar- 

 borough. In naming after him, in 1809, a new genus of Prote- 

 acese, Robert Brown wrote as follows : ' This genus is named 

 in honour of Sir Thos. Frankland, Baronet, to whom English 

 botany is much indebted, and whose valuable observations and 

 excellent figures of submarine plants it is hoped he may be 

 induced to communicate to the public' Sir Thos. Frankland 

 was the fifth baronet ; he was born in 1750 and died in 1831. 

 He was High Sheriff of the county and for many years repre- 

 sented Thirsk in parliament, and our President-elect, Lord 

 Walsingham,. is his great grandson. 



Trans.V.N.U., lSs3 (pub. iSS5). Series E 



