![Anne Pratt01](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0c/Anne_Pratt01.jpg)
Anne Pratt (5 December 1806 – 27 July 1893) was a
botanical
Botany, also called , plant biology or phytology, is the science of plant life and a branch of biology. A botanist, plant scientist or phytologist is a scientist who specialises in this field. The term "botany" comes from the Ancient Greek wo ...
and
ornithological illustrator and author from
Strood
Strood is a town in the unitary authority of Medway in Kent, South East England. The town forms a conurbation with neighbouring towns Chatham, Rochester, Gillingham and Rainham. It lies on the northwest bank of the River Medway at its lowes ...
,
Kent
Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...
.
Life
Anne was the second of three daughters of Robert Pratt (1777–1819), a grocer, and Sara Bundock (1780–1845). Anne Pratt was one of the best known English botanical illustrators of the
Victorian age
In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the period of Queen Victoria's reign, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. The era followed the Georgian period and preceded the Edwardian ...
.
[ As a consequence of her poor health and an impaired knee, during her childhood, she was excluded from sports, and was encouraged to occupy herself by drawing. Pratt was educated at Eastgate House, Rochester, and introduced to botany - considered a suitable field for women] - by Dr. Dods, a family friend.[ She moved to ]Brixton
Brixton is a district in south London, part of the London Borough of Lambeth, England. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London. Brixton experienced a rapid rise in population during the 19th ce ...
, London, in 1826, where she developed her career as an illustrator. Pratt settled in Dover
Dover () is a town and major ferry port in Kent, South East England. It faces France across the Strait of Dover, the narrowest part of the English Channel at from Cap Gris Nez in France. It lies south-east of Canterbury and east of Maidstone ...
in 1849, and in East Grinstead
East Grinstead is a town in West Sussex, England, near the East Sussex, Surrey, and Kent borders, south of London, northeast of Brighton, and northeast of the county town of Chichester. Situated in the extreme northeast of the county, the civ ...
in 1866. On 15 November 1866, at age 60, at Christchurch, Luton, Kent, she married John Pearless, with whom she subsequently settled at Redhill. Pratt died in Shepherd's Bush
Shepherd's Bush is a district of West London, England, within the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham west of Charing Cross, and identified as a major metropolitan centre in the London Plan.
Although primarily residential in character, i ...
, London.
Pratt first rose to prominence with ''Wild Flowers of the Year,'' published in 1852–1853, which was dedicated to Queen Victoria with the monarch's permission.[ Pratt composed more than 20 books, which she illustrated with chromolithographs, on which she collaborated with ]William Dickes
William Dickes (1815-1892) was an English illustrator, engraver, printmaker and lithographer.
Dickes worked as apprentice to the wood-engraver Robert Edward Branston, Allen Robert Branston's son, in about 1831. He studied at the Royal Academy Sc ...
, an engraver skilled in the chromolithograph process. Her works were written in an accessible but accurate style that was partly responsible for the popularising of botany in her day. From her first book, ''Flowers and Their Associations'', her works sold well, but she did not ever achieve critical acclaim as a consequence of a bourgeois disdain for the autodidactic woman.[
Pratt's magnum opus is ''The Flowering Plants, Grasses, Sedges, and Ferns of Great Britain and Their Allies the Club Mosses, Pepperworts, and Horsetails'', a six-volume project assessing more than 1500 species, with 300 illustrations, that was published over a decade, between 1855 and 1873. This work was long used as a standard reference work: the illustrations of ferns in the final volume continued to be used into the second half of the twentieth century; they appeared, unattributed and in very much reduced size, and in half tone, in the ''Observer's Book of ritishFerns''.][''The Observer's Book of Ferns''
compiled by W.J. Stockoe, published by Frederick Warne, no date; later reprint ''The Observer's Book of British Ferns'' compiled by W.J. Stockoe, published by Frederick Warne, 1950.]
A number of her works are now available in the Biodiversity Heritage Library
The Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) is the world’s largest open access digital library for biodiversity literature and archives. BHL operates as worldwide consortiumof natural history, botanical, research, and national libraries working toge ...
.[
]
Selected works
* ''The Field, the Garden, and the Woodland'', 1838.
* ''Flowers and their associations'', 1840.
* ''The Pictorial Catechism of Botany''. London: Suttaby and Co., 1842.
* ''The Ferns of Great Britain'', c. 1850.
* ''Wild Flowers'', 1852 (2 vols.). Also published as classroom wall hangings.
* ''Poisonous, Noxious, and Suspected Plants, of our Fields and Woods'', 1857.
* ''The Flowering Plants, Grasses, Sedges, and Ferns of Great Britain and Their Allies the Club Mosses, Pepperworts, and Horsetails''. London: Frederick Warne and Co., 1855–1873, 6 vols. (Originally only 5 volumes, published 1855–1866, as ''The Flowering Plants of Great Britain''; the 6th volume, on grasses, sedges, and ferns, was added in 1873).
* ''Chapters on Common Things of the Sea-side''. Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge, 1850.
* ''Our Native Songsters''. Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge, 1853.
* ''Haunts of the Wild Flowers''. Routledge, Warne and Routledge, 1863.
* ''The Garden Flowers of the Year''. Religious Tract Society, 1846.
* ''Wild Flowers of The Year''. Religious Tract Society, 1846.
* ''The Excellent Woman as Described in Proverbs 31''. Religious Tract Society, 1863.
References
External links
Digitized works by Anne Pratt
at Biodiversity Heritage Library
The Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) is the world’s largest open access digital library for biodiversity literature and archives. BHL operates as worldwide consortiumof natural history, botanical, research, and national libraries working toge ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pratt, Anne
1806 births
1893 deaths
English nature writers
English illustrators
Botanical illustrators
Natural history illustrators
19th-century English painters