WILLIAM CRAWFORD WILLIAMSON
1816—1895
Early exponents of Fossil Botany—Witham of Lartington—Edward William Binney—William Crawford Williamson—early influences—first contribution to science—studies medicine—work on Foraminifera—appointed Professor at Manchester—successful popular lecturer—his influence in Natural History—investigation of the Carboniferous Flora—controversy with French palaeo-botanists—the magnitude of his output—defects in his work—later work at Kew—personal traits.
During the last forty years the study of fossil plants has come to be a specially vigorous and characteristic branch of British botany. The proper subject of my lecture is Williamson, the man to whom above all others the present strong position of the subject is due. But "there were brave men before Agamemnon," and there are two of the older masters, Witham and Binney, whom I cannot wholly pass over. I ought really to include others, and notably Sir Joseph Hooker, to whom we owe our first clear understanding of Stigmaria and of Lepidostrobus, but this course does not extend to those who, like Sir Joseph, are still living among us and still in active work[1].
I am indebted to Mr Philip Witham, a member of the family, for some information about Henry Witham, of Lartington, the first Englishman to investigate the internal structure of fossil plants.
Henry Witham was, by birth, not a Witham, but a Silvertop, having been the second son of John Silvertop of Minster Acres,
- ↑ Since these words were spoken the veteran leader of English Botany has passed away. A notice of Sir Joseph's career will be found in this volume, and the present writer has given some account of his work on fossil plants in an Anniversary Address to the Linnean Society, May 24th, 1912.
