Nathaniel Bagshaw Ward

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Nathaniel Bagshaw Ward

Nathaniel Bagshaw Ward ( 1791 - 4 June 1868, St Leonard's, Sussex) was an English doctor who popularized[1] a case for growing and transporting plants which was called the Wardian case.

Ward was born in London to Stephen Smith Ward, a medical doctor. He is believed to have been sent to Jamaica at the age of thirteen where he may have taken an interest in plants. He practised medicine in the East End of London and took an interest in botany and entomology in spare time or when on vacation in Cobham, Kent.

"What is known is that Wellclose Square, that part of dockland where he lived, was a Sherlock Holmes sort of place; not exactly producing lepers, abominable lascars and wicked Chinamen, but giving that impression all the same. And had Holmes and Watson been acquainted with their contemporary, Dr. Nathaniel Ward, undoubtedly they would have admired his scientific method of observing and deducing"[2]

He became a Fellow of the Linnean Society in 1817.

The standard author abbreviation N.B.Ward is used to indicate this individual as the author when citing a botanical name.[3]

Ward and the Wardian case

The Wardian case

The glass case that he used to rear butterflies and grow plants was used widely during the time for introducing plants into the British colonies. In 1833 George Loddiges used Wardian cases for shipping plants from Australia and said that "whereas I used formerly to lose nineteen out of the twenty of the plants I imported during the voyage, nineteen out of the twenty is now the average of those that survive". Loddiges was the Vice-President of The Horticultural Society and Wardian cases became popular.

1866

He attempted to make a greenhouse at the Clapham garden on the principle of the Wardian case. This was however critiqued by John Lindley in the Gardeners' Chronicle, who wrote that "when it is opened and shut from day to day, it has no more right to the name [of Wardian case] than a common greenhouse". Lindley also wrote saying that Ward had an inordinate vanity and a desire to be 'recognised [as] a second Newton'.

Dr Ward delivered a lecture on his discovery of a way to preserve plants in 1854 to the Royal Society at the Chelsea Physic Garden. He also worked on microscopy and helped in the development of the Chelsea Physic Garden as a member of the board. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1852.[4]

He died at St Leonards, Sussex and is buried in an unmarked grave in West Norwood Cemetery

References

  • Allen DE. The Victorian Fern Craze. London: Hutchinson, 1969. (p 8-9)
  • Allen DE. The Naturalist in Britain - A Social History. London: Allen Lane, 1976.
  • Desmond R. The problems of transporting plants. In The Garden: a Celebration of One Thousand Years of British Gardening. Harris J ed. London, 1979, pp. 99–104.
  • Hooker JD. Nathaniel Bagshaw Ward, FRS, FLS. Gardeners' Chronicle, 1868, pp. 655–6.
  • Minter S. The Apothecaries' Garden: a History of the Chelsea Physic Garden. London, 2002.

Notes

  1. ↑ Allen (1969):8-9 states "Ward, despite universal statements to the contrary, was not in fact the first inventor of the glass plant-cases with which his name has become so indelibly associated."
  2. ↑ Tyler Whittle 1970 'The Plant Hunters' Chilton Book Company, Philadelphia, 1970, reprinted 1997 The Lyons Press, New York, NY. ISBN 1-55821-592-1
  3. ↑ "Author Query for 'N.B.Ward'". International Plant Names Index. 
  4. ↑ "Library and Archive". The Royal Society. Retrieved 1 October 2010. 

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