William Forsyth (horticulturist)

William Forsyth (1737 – 25 July 1804) was a Scottish botanist. He was a royal head gardener and a founding member of the Royal Horticultural Society. A genus of flowering plants, Forsythia, is named in his honour.

William Forsyth
A stipple engraving of William Forsyth
Born1737
Oldmeldrum, Aberdeenshire, Scotland
Died25 July 1804(1804-07-25) (aged 66–67)
OccupationBotanist

Biography

Forsyth was born at Oldmeldrum in Aberdeenshire, and trained as a gardener at the Chelsea Physic Garden as a pupil of Philip Miller, the chief gardener. He took over the chief gardening position in 1771 and became a mentor to John Fraser. In 1784, he was appointed superintendent of the royal gardens at Kensington and St James's Palace, a position he kept until his death.[1][2]

In 1774 he created one of the first rock gardens while curator of the Chelsea Physic Garden. His garden consisted of 40 tons of assorted stone collected from the roadside outside of the Tower of London, some flint and chalk from nearby downland, and some pieces of lava collected from Iceland. The garden failed to produce much serious growth.[3]

Forsyth created a 'plaister' in 1798 made of lime, dung, ashes, soapsuds, urine, and other various components that was claimed to cure defects in trees and heal "where nothing remained but the bark." He received a grant of £1,500 from British parliament to continue the creation of the plaister, as the nation was at war in 1799 with Napoleon and needed sound timber to build ships, while the Royal Forests were in poor condition.[4][5]

His great-grandson was the gardener and landscape architect Joseph Forsyth Johnson (1840–1906). Johnson was in turn the great-grandfather of the entertainer Bruce Forsyth (1928–2017).[6]

Selected works

References
  1. Charles Frederick Partington (1838) The British cyclopædia of biography
  2. The Rev. J. L. Blake, D.D. (1853) A General Biographical Dictionary: Comprising a Summary Account of the Most Distinguished Persons of All Ages, Nations, and Professions
  3. David C. Stuart (2002) The Plants that Shaped Our Gardens
  4. Archibald William Smith A Gardener's Handbook of Plant Names: Their Meanings and Origins, p. 160, at Google Books
  5. Samuel Maunder (1839) Select British Biography: From the Rude and Warlike Days of Boadicea to the Victorian Era
  6. BBC News page
  7. International Plant Names Index.  Forsyth.
  8. Forsyth, William (1824). "A treatise on the culture and management of fruit trees" ... To which is added, a new and improved edition of "Observations on the diseases, defects and injuries of all kinds of fruit and forest trees" ... (7th ed.). Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, Brown and Green; xxvii+523 pages{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link)
  9. Forsyth, William (1802). A Treatise on the Culture and Management of Fruit-trees.
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