Sir James Edward Smith was an English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 botanist

Botany

Botany, plant science, or plant biology is a branch of biology that involves the scientific study of plant life. Traditionally, botany also included the study of fungi, algae and viruses...

 and founder of the Linnean Society.

Smith was born in Norwich

Norwich

Norwich is a city in England. It is the regional administrative centre and county town of Norfolk. During the 11th century, Norwich was the largest city in England after London, and one of the most important places in the kingdom...

 in 1759, the son of a wealthy wool merchant. He displayed a precocious interest in the natural world. During the early 1780s he enrolled in the medical course at the University of Edinburgh where he studied chemistry under Joseph Black

Joseph Black

Joseph Black FRSE FRCPE FPSG was a Scottish physician and chemist, known for his discoveries of latent heat, specific heat, and carbon dioxide. He was professor of Medicine at University of Glasgow . James Watt, who was appointed as philosophical instrument maker at the same university...

 and natural history under John Walker

John Walker (naturalist)

John Walker was a Scottish minister and natural historian. He was Professor of Natural History at the University of Edinburgh from 1779 to 1803....

. He then moved to London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 in 1783 to continue his studies. Smith was a friend of Sir Joseph Banks

Joseph Banks

Sir Joseph Banks, 1st Baronet, GCB, PRS was an English naturalist, botanist and patron of the natural sciences. He took part in Captain James Cook's first great voyage . Banks is credited with the introduction to the Western world of eucalyptus, acacia, mimosa and the genus named after him,...

 who was offered the entire collection of books, manuscripts and specimens of the Swedish

Sweden

Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

 natural historian and botanist Carolus Linnaeus

Carolus Linnaeus

Carl Linnaeus , also known after his ennoblement as , was a Swedish botanist, physician, and zoologist, who laid the foundations for the modern scheme of binomial nomenclature. He is known as the father of modern taxonomy, and is also considered one of the fathers of modern ecology...

, following the death of his son Carolus Linnaeus the Younger

Carolus Linnaeus the Younger

Carl Linnaeus the Younger, Carl von Linné or Carolus Linnaeus the Younger was a Swedish naturalist...

. Banks declined the purchase but Smith bought the collection for the bargain price of £1,000. The collection arrived in London in 1784 and in 1786 Smith was elected Fellow of the Royal Society

Royal Society

The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, is a learned society for science, and is possibly the oldest such society in existence. Founded in November 1660, it was granted a Royal Charter by King Charles II as the "Royal Society of London"...

.

Between 1786 and 1788 Smith made the grand tour

Grand Tour

The Grand Tour was the traditional trip of Europe undertaken by mainly upper-class European young men of means. The custom flourished from about 1660 until the advent of large-scale rail transit in the 1840s, and was associated with a standard itinerary. It served as an educational rite of passage...

 through the Netherlands

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

, France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

, Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 and Switzerland

Switzerland

Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

 visiting botanists, picture galleries and herbaria

Herbarium

In botany, a herbarium – sometimes known by the Anglicized term herbar – is a collection of preserved plant specimens. These specimens may be whole plants or plant parts: these will usually be in a dried form, mounted on a sheet, but depending upon the material may also be kept in...

. He founded the Linnean Society of London

Linnean Society of London

The Linnean Society of London is the world's premier society for the study and dissemination of taxonomy and natural history. It publishes a zoological journal, as well as botanical and biological journals...

 in 1788, becoming its first President, a post he held until his death. He returned to live in Norwich in 1796 bringing with him the entire Linnean Collection. His library and botanical collections acquired European fame and were visited by numerous entomologists

Entomology

Entomology is the scientific study of insects, a branch of arthropodology...

 and botanists from the entire Continent. In 1792, he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences

Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences or Kungliga Vetenskapsakademien is one of the Royal Academies of Sweden. The Academy is an independent, non-governmental scientific organization which acts to promote the sciences, primarily the natural sciences and mathematics.The Academy was founded on 2...

.

Smith spent the remaining thirty years of his life writing books and articles upon botany. His books included Flora Britannica and The English Flora (4 volumes, 1824 – 1828). He contributed 3,348 botanical articles to Rees's Cyclopaedia

Rees's Cyclopaedia

Rees's Cyclopædia, or The New Cyclopaedia, or, Universal Dictionary of the Arts and Sciences was an important 19th Century encyclopaedia which was regarded by some as subversive when it first appeared. It was edited by Revd...

 between 1808 and 1819, following the death of Rev. William Wood, who had started the work. He contributed seven volumes to the only major botanical publication of the eighteenth century, Flora Graeca, the publications begun by John Sibthorp

John Sibthorp

John Sibthorp was an English botanist.He was born in Oxford, the youngest son of Dr Humphry Sibthorp , who from 1747 to 1784 was Sherardian professor of botany at the University of Oxford....

. A fruitful collaboration was found through descriptions Smith supplied to publisher and illustrator, James Sowerby

James Sowerby

James Sowerby was an English naturalist and illustrator. Contributions to published works, such as A Specimen of the Botany of New Holland or English Botany, include his detailed and appealing plates...

. Depiction of flora in England had previously only found patronage for aesthetic concerns, but an interest in gardening

Gardening

Gardening is the practice of growing and cultivating plants. Ornamental plants are normally grown for their flowers, foliage, or overall appearance; useful plants are grown for consumption , for their dyes, or for medicinal or cosmetic use...

 and natural history saw illustrated publications, such as the exotic A Specimen of the Botany of New Holland

A specimen of the botany of New Holland

A Specimen of the Botany of New Holland, also known by its standard abbreviation Spec. Bot. New Holland, was the first published book on the flora of Australia. Written by James Edward Smith and illustrated by James Sowerby, it was published by Sowerby in four parts between 1793 and 1795...

 and the 36-volume English Botany

English Botany

English Botany is the title of a major publication of British plants, an enormous set of volumes that was issued between 1790 and 1813. The brief, but formal descriptions were supplied by the founder of the Linnean Society, James Edward Smith, and published and illustrated by the botanical...

, reaching new audiences.

In 1797 Smith published The Natural History of the Rarer Lepidopterous Insects of Georgia, the earliest book on American insects. It included the illustrations and notes of John Abbot, with descriptions of new species by Smith based on Abbot's drawings.

Smith's friendship with William Roscoe

William Roscoe

William Roscoe , was an English historian and miscellaneous writer.-Life:He was born in Liverpool, where his father, a market gardener, kept a public house called the Bowling Green at Mount Pleasant. Roscoe left school at the age of twelve, having learned all that his schoolmaster could teach...

 (after whom he named the genus Roscoea

Roscoea

Roscoea is a genus of perennial plants of the family Zingiberaceae . Most members of the family are tropical, whereas Roscoea species are native to mountainous regions of the Himalayas, China and its southern neighbours. Roscoea flowers superficially resemble orchids, although they are not related...

) saw him contribute 5000 plants between 1806 and 1817 to supplement the Roylean Herbarium

John Forbes Royle

John Forbes Royle , British botanist and teacher of materia medica, was born in Kanpur in 1799. Entering the service of the East India Company as assistant surgeon, he devoted himself to studying botany and geology, and made large collections among the Himalaya Mountains...

. This was to become the Smith Herbarium held by the Liverpool Botanic Garden.
After Smith's death the Linnean Collection, together with Smith's own collections, were bought by the Linnean Society for £3,150.

He was married to Pleasance Reeve (1773–1877). She survived her husband by 49 years and edited his memoirs and correspondence. They are buried together at St Margaret's, Lowestoft

Lowestoft

Lowestoft is a town in the English county of Suffolk. The town is on the North Sea coast and is the most easterly point of the United Kingdom. It is north-east of London, north-east of Ipswich and south-east of Norwich...

.

Works

• Icones pictae plantarum rariorum descriptionibus et observationibus illustratae. London, 1790-93
• Linneaeus, Carl von, Disquisitio de sexu plantarum. (1786) - (English) A dissertation on the sexes of plants translated from the Latin of Linnaeus by James Edward Smith. London : Printed for the author, and sold by George Nicol ..., (book details: xv, [1], 62, [2] p. ; 22 cm. (8vo))
• English Botany: Or, Coloured Figures of British Plants, with their Essential Characters, Synonyms and Places of Growth, descriptions supplied by Smith, was issued as a part work over 23 years until its completion in 1813. This work was issued in 36 volumes with 2,592 hand-colored plates of British plants. Published and illustrated by James Sowerby.

Further reading

• Margot Walker, Sir James Edward Smith, 1759-1828. London: 1988