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William T. Stearn

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William Thomas Stearn
Born16 April 1911
Cambridge
Died9 May 2001(2001-05-09) (aged 90)
Richmond, Surrey
EducationCambridge High School for Boys
Known forBotanical taxonomy, History of botany, Botanical Latin, Horticulture
SpouseEldwyth Ruth Alford
AwardsVeitch Memorial Medal (1964), Victoria Medal of Honour (1965), Linnean Society Gold Medal (1976), Commander of the Swedish Order of the Star of the North (1980), Engler gold medal (1993), CBE (1997), Asa Gray Award (2000)
Scientific career
InstitutionsLindley Library, Natural History Museum

William Thomas Stearn /stɜːrn/ VMH CBE (16 April 1911 – 8 May 2001) was a British botanist known for his expertise on the history of botany and in the classical languages. His work is widely read, and amongst gardeners his Dictionary of Plant Names for Gardeners, an etymological dictionary of Latin names of garden plants is likely the best-known of his works, while amongst botanists his Botanical Latin, which ran to four editions, is a standard reference.

Life

William Stearn was born at 37 Springfield Road, Chesterton, Cambridge, England on April 16, 1911, the eldest of four sons, to Thomas Stearn (1871/2–1922), a coachman, and Ellen (Nellie) his wife (née Kiddy 1886–1986) of West Suffolk.[1] Despite lacking any family background in biology he developed a keen interest in natural history and books at an early age, spending his school holidays on his uncle's farm in Suffolk.[2] His father died when he was only eleven, and he attended Cambridge High School for Boys. While he was there, he managed to obtain a position as a part-time research assistant at the Department of Botany, Cambridge University. However, he was largely self-educated, his widowed mother being unable to afford a university education for him. He attended evening classes to develop linguistic, particularly German and the classics, and bibliographic skills.[2] He obtained his first employment at the age of 18 as an apprentice antiquarian bookseller at Bowes & Bowes bookstore in Cambridge.[3] In 1940 he married Eldwyth Ruth Alford, by whom he had a son and two daughters, and who collaborted with him. He died in Richmond, Surrey on May 9, 2001[2][4][5]

Career

Natural History Museum
Entrance to Linnean Society
Linnean medal

While working at the bookstore he continued his research, visiting the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew in 1930, at the age of 19 to study Epimedium, the subject of a later publication, a monograph of the genus (1938).[6][7] By then he had already published his first paper in 1929, on a mould, Peronospora corollaea, affecting the garden plant Campanula pusilla (Campanula cochleariifolia).[8]

He became the Librarian at the Royal Horticultural Society's (RHS) Lindley Library in London from 1933–1952, having been "discovered" at the Cambridge bookstore by the horticulturalist E. A. Bowles (1865–1954) when he was 22. Bowles was a Vice President of the Society, and collaborated with Stearn on a number of plant monographs, such as his Handbook of Crocus.[9] When Bowles died, Stearn wrote an appreciation of him,[10] and later contributed the entry on Bowles to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.[11]

The Lindley Library is named after the British botanist John Lindley (1799–1865), whom Stearn made a study of,[12] and he succeeded the then librarian, H R Hutchinson who was due to retire that year. The only break from this employment was the war years 1941–1946, when he served with the Royal Air Force both in England and in Asia. While at the library he continued his self-education, learning Swedish, and travelling widely to visit other botanical collections. it was during his tenure at the Lindley, that the library acquired one of its largest collections, the Reginald Cory Bequest, which he set about cataloguing.[2]

From the Lindley Library, Stearn moved to the Botany Department at the British Museum of Natural History in 1952 and when he retired in 1976, he was the Senior Principal Scientific Officer there. Following his retirement he continued to work, both at the Museum and at the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew.[3][4] Amongst his post-retirement works was a history of the museum,[13] and he took on the position of editor of Annales Musei Goulandris, a Greek botany journal, till he was 88.[2]

Work

Within a few years of joining the Lindley Library in 1933, Stearn had produced his first major momograph, on lilies (1935), in collaboration with Drysdale Woodcock and John Coutts.[a] In 1950, when Frederick Chittenden the director of RHS Wisley died, he left unfinished the four volume RHS Dictionary of Gardening he had been working on. Stearn undertook to complete the work, particularly volume IV (R–Z), a task he completed within six months. The finished work was published in 1951.[16] Since Stearn's entries in volume IV extended from Soldanella to Zygotritonia, he would jest that he was but "a peculiar authority on plants from 'So-' onwards".[2] About this time, his Art of Botanical Illustration (1950)[17] appeared and has remained the standard work on the subject, but resulted in some bibliographic confusion. Collins, the publisher, had commissioned both Stearn and Wilfred Blunt independently to produce the work. After the mistake was discovered they decided to collaborate, but Blunt's name was on the title page with Stearn only acknowledged in the preface, an omission not rectified till he prepared the second edition in 1994.[2]

Stearn made major contributions to plant taxonomy. He represented the RHS in Stockholm for the Seventh International Botanical Congress there in 1950, where he proposed an International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants, and drafted the first version of the code on the spot, which was subsequently adopted in 1952. This code supplemented the existing International Code of Botanical Nomenclature and he described its history back to 1864 in a paper he published in 1952.[18] He also introduced the terms "cultivar" (a genus or species variety raised or maintained in cultivation) and "grex" (hybrids of common parentage).[2]

Stearn was the author of over 480 publications,[8][19][b] and many of his collaborative works utilised his biblographic skills. While his genus monographs largely concentrated on Mediterranean flora, he was also the author of species articles both popular and technical as well as a number of classical treatises.[4] His output covered a wide range of topics, he is best known for his contributions to botanical history and the publication of his Botanical Latin (4 editions 1966–1992).[20] The latter has been described as akin to the bible of taxonomists.[4] His best known popular work is his Dictionary of Plant Names.[21][2]

One of his best known contributions to the history of botany is his extensive introduction to the Ray Society's edition of Linnaeus' Species plantarum (1957)[22] and his introductions and commentaries on many classic botanical texts.[23] He also had an interest in the history of botanical illustration, collaborating with the art historian Wilfrid Blunt and summarised in their 1950 Art of Botanical Illustration.[17][24][25][26] He collaborated with his wife, Eldwyth Ruth Stearn, on a number of his most important works, including Botanical Latin[27] and Dictionary of Plant Names and translating German botanical history into English.[28] Just before his death he completed a revision of his original Epimedium monograph.[21]

Stearn was a member of the Linnean Society (named after the 18th-century Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus) for many years, becoming a fellow as early as 1934, serving on the Council 1959–1963 and as Vice-President 1961–1962 and President 1979–1982.[8][3]

Awards

William Stearn received three honorary doctorates during his lifetime, from Cambridge, Leiden and Uppsala. In 1976 the Linnean Society awarded him their gold medal (now the Linnean medal) for his work on Linnaeus, and the made a Commander of the Swedish Order of the Star of the North (Polar Star) in 1980. In 1993 he received the Engler gold medal. The Royal Horticultural Society awarded him both their Veitch Memorial Medal (1964) and Victoria Medal of Honour (VMH, 1965). In 2000 he received the Asa Gray Award, the highest honor of the American Society of Plant Taxonomists.[4] He was appointed Commander of the British Empire (CBE) in 1997.[2]

Legacy

Stearn is considered amongst the most eminent British botanists, and has been compared to botanists of the past including Robert Brown, Darwin, the Hookers (William and Joseph),[2] and described as "the modern Linnaeus".[11] When he died The Times described him as "the greatest botanical authority of the twentieth century".[29] Amongst other epithets, Stearn has been described as "The Complete Naturalist".[30][31] The Society for the History of Natural History of which he was a founding member has created the William T. Stearn Student Essay Prize in his honour.[32]

407 taxa bear his name as a botanical authority,[33] such as Allium chrysonemum Stearn. In the light of his work on Epimedium, the RHS has named a cultivar after him, Epimedium 'William Stearn'.[34][7]

Selected publications

See also: § Bibliography

Books

Articles

The standard author abbreviation Stearn is used to indicate this person as the author when citing a botanical name.[35]

Notes

  1. ^ Lilies was published under Woodcock and Coutts' names[14] but was largely written by Stearn.[8] It was republished in an exanded and revised edition in 1950 as Woodcock and Stearn's Lilies of the World.[15]
  2. ^ Publications are numbered consecutively from 1 (1929) to 437 (1991), a further list from 1992–1997 exists only as a typed manuscript[4]

References

  1. ^ Prance 2014.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Anonymous 2001.
  3. ^ a b c Walters 2001.
  4. ^ a b c d e f Iltis 2001.
  5. ^ Heywood 2002.
  6. ^ Stearn 1938.
  7. ^ a b Avent 2010.
  8. ^ a b c d The Linnean Society 1976.
  9. ^ Bowles 1952.
  10. ^ Stearn 1955.
  11. ^ a b Buchan 2007.
  12. ^ Stearn 1998.
  13. ^ Stearn 1981.
  14. ^ Woodcock & Coutts 1935.
  15. ^ Woodcock & Stearn 1950.
  16. ^ Huxley et al 1992.
  17. ^ a b Blunt & Stearn 1994.
  18. ^ Stearn 1952. sfn error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFStearn1952 (help)
  19. ^ The Linnean Society 1992.
  20. ^ Stearn 1992.
  21. ^ a b Stearn 2002. sfn error: multiple targets (3×): CITEREFStearn2002 (help)
  22. ^ Linnaeus 1753.
  23. ^ Robson 2001.
  24. ^ Blunt & Stearn 1973.
  25. ^ Blunt 2001.
  26. ^ Stearn 1976.
  27. ^ Stearn 1992, Front matter
  28. ^ Baumann 1993.
  29. ^ Times 2001.
  30. ^ Walters 1992a.
  31. ^ Walters 1992b.
  32. ^ SHNH 2016, William T. Stearn Student Essay Prize
  33. ^ Plantlist 2016.
  34. ^ RHS 2016, Epimedium 'William Stearn'
  35. ^ International Plant Names Index.  Stearn.

Bibliography

Articles about Stearn

Stearn bibliography

Works by Stearn

Bibliography notes

  1. ^ Index by W. T. Stearn, pp. 213-22[Bibliography 1]
  2. ^ Notes on the flowers represented in the plates, by P. M. Synge, The romance of the flower book, by S. Sitwell, The illustrators of the great flower books, by W. Blunt, An introduction to the bibliography, by P. M. Synge, The bibliography, by W. T. Stearn, Sabine Wilson, and Handasyde Buchanan, with a foreword by S. Dillon Ripley[Bibliography 2]
  1. ^ The Linnean Society 1976
  2. ^ RBMS 2016
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