Michael Pakenham Edgeworth

Michael Pakenham Edgeworth (24 May 1812 – 30 July 1881) was an Irish botanist who specialized in seed plants and ferns,[1] and spent most of his life working in India. He was also a pioneer of photography.

Michael Pakenham Edgeworth
Edgeworth c. 1843–1845
Born24 May 1812
County Longford, Ireland
Died30 July 1881(1881-07-30) (aged 69)
Eigg Island, Scottish Inner Hebrides, Scotland
CitizenshipIrish
Alma materUniversity of Edinburgh
PartnersChristina (née Macpherson)
Scientific career
Fieldsbotany
Author abbrev. (botany)Edgew.

Early life and family relations

Edgeworth was born in Edgesworthstown, County Longford, Ireland on 24 May 1812,[2] one of twenty-four children[3] of Richard Lovell Edgeworth (1744–1817) and his four wives. His mother, Frances Beaufort, was the fourth wife. His older half-sister Maria Edgeworth, born to his father's first wife Anna Maria Edgeworth (née Elers), became a novelist. Among his other siblings were Honora (half-sister), Fanny (sister), Lucy (sister), and Francis (brother). With his wife Christina, whom he married in 1842, Michael had a daughter named Harriet and a second, Christina, who died in infancy.[4]

Education

He attended Charterhouse School in England from September 1823 where his schoolmates included William Makepeace Thackeray and H.G. Liddell. He later studied oriental languages and botany at University of Edinburgh, Scotland, from 1827.[2] A relative, Lord Carrington offered his mother a cadetship for one of her sons. From 1829 - 30 he was at the East India College, Haileybury, ending with appointment to the East India Company on 30 April 1831 as a writer.[2]

Travels

Although he is known to have had an estate of 1,659 acres (671 ha)[5] in County Longford, Ireland, he joined the Bengal Civil Service of the British Colonial regime in India. He was initially based at Ambala, Muzaffarnagar, then Saharanpur and finally Banda until 1850 in a series of judicial and administrative posts covering an area from Lahore to Madras.[6] Being possessed of a curious spirit, Edgeworth travelled widely especially in northern India[6] where he collected plants and made notes. In June 1849 he was appointed as one of the Commissioners in The Punjab.[7] In addition to his interest in botany, he also wrote about Indian languages,[8] culture, topography, and antiquities.[6]

But he was not always in India; he maintained a connection with scientific societies, being elected to the Linnean Society in 1842.[2] On a return voyage to India in 1846 he took advantage of a short stop at Aden to collect plants. Of the 40 specimens, eleven turned out to be previously undescribed species that he reported in a scientific journal.[9] A letter [10] from Charles Darwin to J.D. Hooker mentions a conversation held between himself, Edgeworth and biologists John Lubbock and George Charles Wallich, at a meeting of the Linnean Society of London (18 April 1861) less than two years after the publication of Darwin's On the Origin of Species (22 November 1859). Unfortunately, very little of the content of this conversation is revealed in the letter.[10]

Edgeworth experimented with the use of photographic techniques in botany from 1839, making daguerreotypes and photogenic drawings, some of which survive.[2][11]

Death

He retired in 1859, returning to London. Edgeworth died suddenly on 30 July 1881 on the island of Eigg, in the Scottish Inner Hebrides.[2] Edgeworth was married to Christina daughter of Dr Macpherson of King's College, Aberdeen in 1846.[11]

Published works

He published thirteen papers on botany, climatology and his travels. In the field of botany, Edgeworth wrote:

  • Descriptions of Some Unpublished Species of Plants from North-Western India (R.Taylor, 1851)[12]
  • Catalogue of Plants found in the Banda district, 1847–49, pp. 60.8 (Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, Calcutta 1852, Vol. xxi.)[13]
  • Pollen (Hardwicke + Bogue, 1877)[12][14][15]

His meticulous diaries from the years 1828 (just a few years before going to India) to 1867, was compiled in the weighty, 8,000-page publication entitled India in the Age of Empire - The Journals of Michael Pakenham Edgeworth (1812–1881). It chronicles the broadening of British imperial influence in the Indian territories and is principally of cultural and political interest.[6]

Botanical names

The plant genus Edgeworthia was dedicated to him, and to his half-sister, the writer Maria Edgeworth. Numerous other plants including Primula edgeworthii, Rhododendron edgeworthii, Impatiens edgeworthii and Platanthera edgeworthii were named after him.

References
  1. "Index of Botanists: Record number 102372". Harvard University Herbaria. President and fellows of Harvard College. 7 April 2008. Retrieved 20 May 2009.
  2. Jackson, Benjamin Daydon; and Grout, Andrew (May 2010). "Edgeworth, Michael Pakenham". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/8477. ISBN 978-0-19-861412-8. Edgeworth, Michael Pakenham (1812–1881), botanist and East India Company servant, was born on 24 May 1812 at Edgeworthstown, co. Longford, Ireland (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  3. "Longford: Loveliest County of the Irish Plain". Ireland for Visitors. Retrieved 24 March 2009.
  4. Priestman, Judith; Mary Clapinson; Tim Rogers (1993). "Catalogue of the papers of Maria Edgeworth (1768–1849), and the Edgeworth family, 17th-19th century". University of Oxford, Bodleian Library. Retrieved 8 June 2013.
  5. "County Longford Landowners 1870s". Ireland Genealogy Projects. Archived from the original on 27 August 2008. Retrieved 24 March 2009.
  6. Edgeworth, Michael Pakenham. "INDIA IN THE AGE OF EMPIRE: The Journals of Michael Pakenham Edgeworth (1812–1881) from the Bodleian Library, Oxford". Adam Matthew Publications. Archived from the original on 17 July 2012. Retrieved 20 February 2015.
  7. London evening standard 4 June 1849, p.3
  8. Grammar and Vocabulary of the Cashmiri Language. Journ. Asiatic. Soc. Bengal 1841, pp. 1038—1064
  9. Edgeworth, Michael Pakenham (1847). "Two hours' herborization at Aden". Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. 16: 1211.
  10. "Darwin, C.R. to Hooker, J.D., 23 [April 1861]". Darwin Correspondence Project. University of Cambridge. Retrieved 28 January 2010.
  11. Jacob, Michael G. (1 June 2000). "Michael Pakenham Edgeworth (1812–81)". History of Photography. 24 (2): 169–174. doi:10.1080/03087298.2000.10443388. ISSN 0308-7298. S2CID 190920817.
  12. "Michael Pakenham Edgeworth". Open Library. 17 October 2008. Retrieved 24 March 2009.
  13. "Full text of "Catalogue of the books, manuscripts, maps and drawings in the British Museum (Natural History)"". 23 April 1904. Retrieved 24 March 2009.
  14. Edgeworth, M. P. (1877). Pollen.
  15. "Review of Pollen by M. P. Edgeworth". Nature. 16: 499. 11 October 1877.
  16. International Plant Names Index.  Edgew.
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