William Allport Leighton
Encyclopedia
Life
He was the only son of William Leighton, by Lucy Maria, daughter and coheiress of John Allport of Prescot, near BaschurchBaschurch
Baschurch is a large village and civil parish in Shropshire, England. It lies in North Shropshire, north of Shrewsbury. Population: 1,475 . The village has strong links to Shrewsbury to the south-east, Oswestry to the north-west, and Wem to the north-east. Baschurch is twinned with the town of Giat...
, Shropshire
Shropshire
Shropshire is a county in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes, the county is a NUTS 3 region and is one of four counties or unitary districts that comprise the "Shropshire and Staffordshire" NUTS 2 region. It borders Wales to the west...
. His father was the keeper of the Talbot Hotel in Shrewsbury
Shrewsbury
Shrewsbury is the county town of Shropshire, in the West Midlands region of England. Lying on the River Severn, it is a civil parish home to some 70,000 inhabitants, and is the primary settlement and headquarters of Shropshire Council...
, and the son was born there on 17 May 1805. He went to school at the Manse on Claremont Hill, Shrewsbury, with Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...
, who first roused in him an interest in plants. He went on to Wolverhampton Grammar School
Wolverhampton Grammar School
Wolverhampton Grammar School is a co-educational independent school located in the city of Wolverhampton.Initially Wolverhampton Boys Grammar School, it was founded in 1512 by Sir Stephen Jenyns, a master of the ancient guild of Merchant Taylors, who was also Lord Mayor of London in the year of...
, and in 1822 was articled to a solicitor in Shrewsbury.
On the death of his father he abandoned the study of the law in favour of the church. He matriculated at St John's College, Cambridge
St John's College, Cambridge
St John's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college's alumni include nine Nobel Prize winners, six Prime Ministers, three archbishops, at least two princes, and three Saints....
, and graduated B.A. in 1833. Having been a pupil of John Stevens Henslow
John Stevens Henslow
John Stevens Henslow was an English clergyman, botanist and geologist. He is best remembered as friend and mentor to his pupil Charles Darwin.- Early life :...
, Leighton on his return to his native town deferred ordination in order to draw up a flora of Shropshire. In 1843 he was ordained deacon and priest, and took on clerical duties in Shrewsbury until 1848, when he resigned his cure, and thenceforward occupied himself entirely with botany.
Leighton suffered from deteriorating eyesight, and gave up his studies; he donated his collection to the national herbarium at Kew Gardens. He died at Lucifelde, Shrewsbury, on 28 February 1889.
Works
In 1841, he brought out his Flora of Shropshire, the etchings to illustrate some of the genera being his own. He then began working on the cryptogams, and in 1851 the Ray SocietyRay Society
The Ray Society was instituted in 1844 and named after John Ray, the 17th century naturalist, as a scientific publishing organization whose activities are devoted mainly to the British flora and fauna. So far the Ray Society has published 169 volumes...
published his Angiocarpous Lichens elucidated by their Sporidia. From that date onward Leighton published widely in the literature on lichen
Lichen
Lichens are composite organisms consisting of a symbiotic organism composed of a fungus with a photosynthetic partner , usually either a green alga or cyanobacterium...
s, producing as his major work Lichen Flora of Great Britain in 1871. This reached a third edition in 1879.