204 
CHRISTY : JOHN GIBBS, AN ESSEX BOTANIST. 
lady in question married a Franklin, and Gibbs’ grandmother 
bore the name of Ann Millington Franklin. 
Gibbs’ grandfather started a wool-stapling business in 
Bermondsey, which came later to Gibbs himself, and he 
carried it on for a time ; but, for some unexplained reason, it 
came to grief. Then Gibbs obtained employment with Messrs. 
Johns, of Chelmsford (as stated already), with which firm he 
had previously had business relations. This explains how he 
came to settle at Chelmsford. 
Again, I was wrong in assuming that Gibbs was self-educated. 
I might have known otherwise, in view of the excellence of his 
handwriting and diction, to which I allude. He received, 
in fact, quite a good education, though of an inexpensive kind, 
* 
at the Grange Road Academy, in Bermondsey. This was 
kept by one Abbott, a member of the Society of Friends, w r hich 
has long been famed for the excellence of its schools. Gibbs 
had no family connection with Quakers and was never one 
himself, but was sent to the school in question because it was 
accounted the bast in the district, which was then largely resi¬ 
dential and very different in every way from what it is now. 
As to the events of Gibbs’ life at Chelmsford and the botanical 
work he did whilst living there, I have nothing to add. 
In another respect also, I was, I find, a good deal out— 
namely, in respect of the date of Gibbs’ death, which I believed 
to have taken place about February 1892. That was, however, 
only the time when he left Chelmsford and I lost sight of him. 
As a matter of fact, he lived some eleven years longer, but he 
accomplished, I understand, no further botanical work. To 
me, with my recollection of his frail appearance during his 
later years at Chelmsford, it seems almost impossible that he 
could have survived so long. 
On leaving Chelmsford, Gibbs and his wife (his second) went 
to live with his married daughter (the Mrs. Larkin above 
mentioned), who, being a teacher, followed her profession at 
sundry places, settling ultimately at a little village near Shelton, 
in Bedfordshire, five or six miles from Kimbolton (Hunts.). 
Here Gibbs lodged in the house of a Mrs. Whitehead, who 
treated the old gentleman with much kindness. She and his 
daughter looked after him, indeed, so well that he survived his 
removal from Chelmsford until 2 March 1903, when he died 
