BRITTEN (James, 1846-1924, F.L.S., Editor of the Journal of Botany for almost 45 Years)

Autograph Letter Signed to 'Dear Sir', ( Robert Morton MIDDLETON , jr., F.L.S., F.Z.S., 1846-1909, English shipbroker and botanist), writing "in haste - not only to thank you for the pretty little Astragalus, which arrived in first-rate condition ... I much want Gymnadenia albida, Listera cordata, Corallorrhiza, Goodyera, &c - Any rare Scotch plants will be very acceptable. Did I tell you that a tin box can be forwarded pr sample post for two or three stamps? ... it is a fresh specimen of each Orchid that I require ... I enclose you Radiola, a favourite little plant of mine", 2 sides 8vo., High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, 5th July

Britten studied medicine, was at Kew 1869-1871, and from 1871 worked in the Botanical department of the British Museum. He compiled with Robert Holland the valuable 'Dictionary of English Plant Names', 1878-1886, and with G.S. Boulger the 'Biographical Index of British and Irish Botanists', 1893, which had first appeared in the Journal of Botany.
Middleton was employed at one time by the Hartlepools Shipowners' Society. About 1886 he and his wife settled in South Pittsburg, Tennessee, at the foot of the Cumberland Mountains. He corresponded with many leading naturalists, collected autographs, and presented a herbarium of some 3000 American and other specimens to McGill University in December 1890, returning permanently to England in 1892. With his wife and sister he spent 1904-1907 as a missionary in Chile. Again returning, he took a house in Kew and was a Temporary Assistant at the Natural History Museum till 1909.

Item Date:  1869

Stock No:  13902      £75

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