Agnes (née Thomson) Ibbetson (1757–1823), was an English plant physiologist.

Life

She was the daughter of Andrew Thomson Esq., of Roehampton, a London merchant, and was born in London in 1757 and educated at home. In 1783 she married James Ibbetson at Bushey in Hertfordshire. He was the eldest son the Rev. James Ibbetson, rector of Bushey and Archdeacon of St. Albans. James, junior, was a barrister and amateur antiquary who had been admitted to Lincoln's Inn in 1771, but he died in 1790 aged 35 leaving Agnes a widow. Sometime after James's death she moved to Devon where she lived for the rest of her life. She died on 9 February 1823 in

Exmouth Exmouth is a harbor, port town, civil parishes in England, civil parish and seaside resort, sited on the east bank of the mouth of the River Exe and southeast of Exeter. In 2011 it had a population of 34,432, making Exmouth the List of town ...

, aged 66. Her nephew was

Charles Poulett Thomson Charles Poulett Thomson, 1st Baron Sydenham, (13 September 1799 – 19 September 1841) was a British businessman, politician, diplomat and the first Governor General of the united Province of Canada.

, who was a politician and become the first Governor of Canada, being raised to the peerage as Baron Syndenham. Ibbetson was left with an annuity and comfortable financial circumstances.

Work

Though isolated from the contemporary scientific community, Ibbetson began publishing her plant physiology in her fifties, and approached her work with an observational and experimental bent. Ibbetson made extensive use of microscopes, plant dissection, and other technology to pursue her studies, and believed that plant functions had mechanical explanations. Between 1809 and 1822 Mrs. Ibbetson contributed more than fifty papers to '' Nicholson's Journal'' and the ''

Philosophical Magazine The ''Philosophical Magazine'' is one of the oldest scientific journals published in English. It was established by Alexander Tilloch in 1798;John Burnett"Tilloch, Alexander (1759–1825)" Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford Univer ...

'' on the microscopic structure and physiology of plants, including such subjects as air-vessels, pollen, perspiration, sleep, winter-buds, grafting, impregnation, germination, and the Jussieuean method. In the

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 ...

department of the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

are preserved some specimens of woods and microscopic slides prepared by her, with a manuscript description stating that they represent twenty-four years' work, and illustrating her erroneous belief that buds originate endogenously and force their way outward.

Legacy

The leguminous genus ''Ibbetsonia'' was dedicated to her by John Sims, but is now considered identical with the ''

Cyclopia Cyclopia (named after the Greek mythology character cyclopes) is the most extreme form of holoprosencephaly and is a congenital disorder (birth defect) characterized by the failure of the embryonic prosencephalon to properly divide the orbits of ...

'' of Ventenat.

References

;Attribution {{DEFAULTSORT:Ibbetson, Agnes 1757 births 1823 deaths Scientists from London English physiologists Plant physiologists 18th-century women scientists 19th-century British women scientists