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Book of the Month

The botanical publications of William Curtis - September 2005

Flora Londinensis, or, Plates and descriptions of such plants as grow wild in the environs of London. London : Printed for and sold by the author, 1777-1798. [Guy's Physical Society Collection OUTSIZE QK306 CUR ]

Curtis's Botanical Magazine. London : Sherwood, Neely and Jones, 1810-1834. [Rare Journals Collection]

by Hugh Cahill, Senior Information Assistant, Foyle Special Collections Library

Book of the month archive

Melittis Melissophyllum or Bastard-Balm from vol. ii of William Curtis's Flora Londinensis, or, Plates and descriptions of such plants as grow wild in the environs of London. London : Printed for and sold by the author, 1777-1798. [Guy's Physical Society Collection OUTSIZE QK306 CUR ]

Curtis's Botanical Magazine and Flora Londinensis are two of the most beautiful and important botanical publications of the eighteenth century and both were the results of the efforts of one man, the botanist and entomologist William Curtis (1746-1799). Curtis was born into a Quaker family in Alton, Hampshire. Although his father, John Curtis, was a prosperous master tanner he was apprenticed to his grandfather, who was an apothecary, at the age of fourteen. As a child Curtis had developed a love of botany encouraged by a local amateur naturalist, James Lagg, an ostler at the inn next to Curtis's house. At the age of twenty he moved to London and took employment at the shop of Thomas Talwin in Gracechurch Street, to whose business he eventually succeeded. Curtis spent much of his time exploring the countryside around London, studying the plants he found there and discussing his findings with other enthusiasts. In order to have the leisure time to devote to these pursuits, Curtis took on a partner in his business to whom he eventually sold it outright.

By 1772 Curtis's reputation as a botanist was such that he was made the praefectus horti (or director)of the Society of Apothecaries at the Chelsea Physic Garden. The following year he established a botanical garden for the cultivation and study of native British plants at Bermondsey. This garden was to move twice. The first move was to a larger plot at Lambeth Marsh, situated in the area between present day Westminster Bridge and Waterloo railway station. Curtis named this new garden the London Botanic Garden and opened it to the public on 1 January 1779. However, by 1789, because of smoke pollution, he had to move his plants to a new, even larger garden, in Brompton. He cultivated some 6,000 species from all over the world in his garden, including medicinal and culinary herbs, English wild flowers, trees and shrubs. For an annual subscription of a guinea patrons could visit Curtis's garden and attend the lectures he gave there and for an extra guinea a year they could also share in plants and seeds from the garden.

The publication of Flora Londinensis

Agaricus Fimetarius or Egg Mushroom from vol.i of William Curtis's Flora Londinensis, or, Plates and descriptions of such plants as grow wild in the environs of London. London : Printed for and sold by the author, 1777-1798. [Guy's Physical Society Collection OUTSIZE QK306 CUR ]

Although he grew a wide range of exotics in his garden Curtis's real passion was the British flora, and in particular those plants to be found within the neighbourhood of London. In 1775 Curtis published the first part of Flora Londinensis, which was intended, as its name suggests, to include all the wild flowers that grew within a ten mile radius of London. However, it was more comprehensive than that and covered most of the common flowers of southern England, as well as a number of interesting plants, such as the birdseye primrose, that grew elsewhere in the country. By 1777 Curtis's workload was such that he felt he could not continue working at the Chelsea Physic Garden and he left to concentrate on the production of Flora Londinensis. Flora Londinensis was published in six fascicles that are were usually bound in two volumes. Each fascicle consisted of twelve separate issues or "Nos." each of which contained six plates and their accompanying text. The text for each plate gave the alternate and folk names for each plant, a description of the plant and its habitat, as well as a list of the localities were Curtis had seen it. The final part, which included a title page and indexes for the second volume, was issued in 1798.

The plates themselves are magnificent. They are hand coloured, drawn to a uniform scale and many of them are life-sized. Curtis employed the best botanical artists and engravers of the time to work on the Flora Londinensis, as can be seen in the high degree of accuracy and detail displayed in the plates. Although most of the plates are unsigned, the signatures of William Kilburn, James Sowerby, or Sydenham Edwards appear on some. Sydenham Teast Edwards (d.1819) not only worked with Curtis on Flora Londinensis but also on the The Botanical Magazine. William Kilburn (1745-1818) contributed to both Flora Londinensis and The botanical magazine before returning to his original trade as a calico printer. He opened his own factory and his designs made it a great success. James Sowerby (1757-1822) not only worked with Curtis but also collaborated with William Aiton on Hortus Kewensis (1789) and with Sir James Edward Smith to produce Icones pictae plantarum rariorum (1790 -1793) and English Botany (1790–1814), which is considered to be the first extensive description of the British flora.

Morea Spicata (plate. no.1283) from Curtis's botanical magazine, 1810. [Rare Journals Collection]

Despite the quality of its plates and the praise it received Flora Londinensis was not a financial success and no more than 300 copies of each part were ever produced. It was published by subscription but the income from these was not sufficient to cover the costs of production. Curtis had to rely on the financial support of Lord Bute ( to whom the work is dedicated) to help cover his costs and continue publication. Although the first edition was a financial failure William J. Hooker published an enlarged edition of the Flora Londinensis between 1817 and 1828. This edition consisted of 647 plates with a text by Hooker. Its geographical range was extended and it included plants from around the British Isles.

Curtis's botanical magazine

Apart from Flora Londinensis the publication that Curtis is best remembered for is the periodical The Botanical Magazine, which first appeared in 1787. According to Curtis it was produced in response to the "repeated solicitations of several ladies and gentlemen for a work in which Botany and Gardening, or the labours of Linnaeus and Miller might happily be combined". The public were evidently more interested in the exotic plants which they grew in their gardens than in the native flora of London. Its beautiful plates made it very popular and it was an enormous financial success achieving a circulation of around 3,000 throughout Curtis's lifetime. As Curtis said himself, The Botanical Magazine brought him "pudding" while Flora Londinensis had only brought him "praise".

Gardenia Amoena or Crimson-tipped Gardenia (plate no.1904) from Curtis's botanical magazine, 1817. [Rare Journals Collection]

The chief artist on the magazine in its early years was Sydenham Teast Edwards. Of the 1,721 plates which appeared in the magazine in its first 28 years Edwards produced over 1,600. His association with the publication continued until 1815 when he had a disagreement with the editors and left to set up the rival Botanists' Register. As with Flora Londinensis all the plates in The Botanical Magazine were hand-coloured. This remained the case (except for a few chromolithographs in 1921) until 1948. After that time, due to the expense of hand-colouring each plate, the increasing complexity of the pictures and a dearth of artists willing to undertake the work, a four colour gravure process was adopted which gave results that approximated hand-colouring.

The Botanical Magazine has survived many crises and is still being published today but under the name Curtis's Botanical Magazine, a name given to it by the botanist and physician John Sims (1749-1831), who took over the editorship of the magazine when Curtis died in 1799. However, during the years 1984-1995, it appeared under the banner of the Kew Magazine before reverting to its famliar name.

Curtis's other publications

Nymphea Rubra or Red Flowered Water Lilly (plate no.1280) from: Curtis's botanical magazine, 1810. [Rare Journals Collection]

As well as various catalogues of the plants in his garden Curtis published a number of other important botanical works, including Catalogue of plants growing wild in the environs of London (1774) and Practical observations on the British grasses (1790), which ran to several editions. Curtis never published his botanical lectures but after his death his son-in-law published them as Lectures on botany as delivered in the botanic garden at Lambeth, in a lavishly illustrated three volume set. Curtis was a keen entomologist as well as a botanist and in 1771 he published Instructions for collecting and preserving insects, which he followed with a translation of Linnaeus's Fundamenta entomologiae in 1772. In 1782 he wrote A short history of the Brown-Tail Moth following a plague of caterpillars of that species. Curtis was one of the original fellows of the Linnean Society, and a number of his papers appeared in its transactions, including one published posthumously in 1799 showing that aphids produce honeydew on plants.

The copy of Flora Londinensis at the Foyle Special Collections Library forms part of the Guy's Physical Society Collection and has recently been conserved through the generosity of Professor Arthur Lucas, former principal of King's. The Foyle Special Collections Library also holds most of the volumes of Curtis's Botanical Magazine for the period 1810-1834.

Further reading

Blanche Henrey. British botanical and horticultural literature before 1800 : comprising a history and bibliography of botanical and horticultural books printed in England, Scotland, and Ireland from the earliest times until 1800. London : Oxford University Press, 1975. [Franklin-Wilkins QK21.G7 HEN]

F.J. Chittenden. Curtis's Botanical Magazine Index ... London: RHS, 1956. [Store Reference QK 45.C94]

Martyn Rix. The art of the botanist. Guildford : Lutterworth Press , c1981. [LGF Science Store-Books FOL. QK98.2 RIX ]

Wilfrid Blunt and William Stearn. Art of botanical illustration. London : Antique Collectors Club, 1994.

Lys de Bray. The Art of botanical illustration. Bromley: Quarto, 1989.

Also of interest

William Rickatson Dykes. Notes on tulip species. London : Herbert Jenkins, 1930. [Early Science Collection FOL. QK495.L72]

Shirley Hibberd. Field flowers : a handy book for the rambling botanist, suggesting what to look for and where to go in the out-door study of British plants. London : W. H. & L. Collingridge, [1870]. [Early Science Collection QK306 HIB ]

F. Edward Hulme. Familiar Swiss flowers ... London: Cassell ,1908 [Early Science Collection QK331 HUL]

Jocely Brooke. The wild orchids of Britain. London : Bodley Head, 1950. [Early Science Collection FOL. QK495.O6 BRO]

Sir William Jackson Hooker. The British flora : , Vol. I, , Comprising the phænogamous or flowering plants, and the ferns ... Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1842.[Early Science Collection QK306 HOO]

James Sowerby. English botany; or, Coloured figures of British plants, with their essential characters, synonyms, and places of growth. London : printed for the author, by J. Davis ... , 1790-1814. [Guy's Hospital Physical Society Collection QK306 SOW ]