26 WHITWELL: WEST YORKSHIRE RECORDS AND NOTES. 
his master, and the interest then awakened remained active to the 
last, and has proved hereditary in his family. 
n 1841 John Tatham was elected a member of the Edinburgh 
Botanical Society. He also joined the London Botanical Society, 
and through this double membership plant-specimens of his 
collecting became widely distributed and his name well known. He 
was likewise-one of the original members of the Ray Society, 
founded in 1844. Mr. Tatham. supplied lists of the plants of the 
Settle region to Dr. John Windsor for the ‘Flora Cravoniensis,’ and 
to Mr. Henry Baines for his ‘Flora of Yorkshire ;’ also to the 
‘Phytologist’ (Vol. I., page 87). 
John Tatham was one of the party whose visit to Teesdale in 
1844 resulted in the discovery of Avenaria uliginosa Schleich., its 
other members being James Backhouse, sen. ; James Backhouse, jun. 
(afterwards the author of the ‘ Monograph of the British Hieracia’) ; 
G. S. Gibson, of Saffron Walden, and Silvanus Thompson. In 18409, 
and again a few years later, he made a tour in Scotland in company 
with the elder Backhouse ; many characteristic. Highland plants 
collected by him then are now in my possession. 
The delight in natural history pursuits, and particularly in 
botanical science, which has so long happily characterised the 
Society of Friends, found full illustration in the present instance, 
as the families of Tatham and Thompson both belonged to that 
religious body. 
Mr. Tatham died at Settle on the 12th January, 1875. He was 
twice married. His widow died on the 3oth January, 1892, at the age 
of 94 years. She preserved his herbarium with great care, and was 
much interested in every recognition of Mr. Tatham’s botanical work. 
SILVANUS THOMPSON, youngest son of Mr. Thomas Thompson, 
married Mr. Tatham’s second daughter. He was for many years 
a master in the large Friends’ School at Bootham, York, and there 
did much to foster a love of natural science among the boys. Two 
of his pupils afterwards became distinguished botanists: Mr. J. Gilbert 
Baker, F.R.S., of Kew, and the late Mr. James Backhouse, of York 
(‘British Hieracia’). He, as well as his father-in-law, contributed 
records to Baines’s ‘Flora,’ the ‘Phytologist,’ etc. One of his sons 
is the well-known Principal of the Technical College, Finsbury— 
Dr. Silvanus Phillips Thompson, F.R.S.—noted for his contributions 
to electrical and magnetic science, and recently the discoverer of 
a second habitat for our Yorkshire Avenaria gothica Fries. 
Mr. and Mrs. Thompson each had plant collections representing 
their earlier botanical work, and on their marriage these were combined 
to form one herbarium. When in 1864 Mr. J. G. Baker’s house at 
Naturahst, 
