89 
JOHN GIBBS (iS22-?i892) : AN ESSEX BOTANIST. 
By MILLER CHRISTY, F.L S. 
With Portrait. 
[Read 2yth January 1917.] 
HE “ working-man naturalist ” (as he is often called) is,. 
X in the main, a product of the North of England and of 
Scotland. There, not uncommonly, one meets with men 
of very modest means, living perhaps in a tiny cottage or 
in a small house in a back street of some grimy manufacturing 
town, working by day in (it may be) a cotton-mill, a boot- 
factory, or a chemical-works, yet taking a keen interest in some 
branch of Natural Science (usually botany, entomology, or 
conchology), to the study of which they devote all their leisure. 
Such men often do ready good and original work in the minor 
branches of research, corresponding and exchanging specimens 
with fellow-workers in their own special lines of study, or 
contributing papers to the publications of local scientific societies; 
and some are well able to hold their own in controversy on points 
of current scientific interest. Of such men, Thomas Edward, 
shoe-maker, of Banff, and Robert Dick, baker, of Thurso, are 
certainly those whose names are most widely known, through 
their lives having been written by the popular author, Samuel 
Smiles. Yet these two were probably far from being the best 
and most typical examples of their class. For such, we should 
probably search most succes: fully in the industrial districts of 
Lancashire and Yorkshire. 
In the South of England, men of this particular type are com¬ 
paratively few. In this county, I cannot recall more than two 
I have known. The best of these was undoubtedly James L. 
English (1820-1888), of Epping, though he was not an altogether 
typical example, for he was not a working-man in the strict 
sense, having been employed as collector by Henry Doubleday, 
who largely trained him and directed his scientific work. 1 The 
subject cf this article was another man of the same class, of 
which he was perhaps more truly typical than English, though 
his scientific work was of less value. 
a 
John Gibbs, of Chelmsford, was well known in his day to those 
living in the neighbourhood who were interested in the study of 
1 For a brief account of him and his work, by Mr. William Cole see my Birds of Essex, p,-. 
19-21 (1890). 
G 
