James Alexander Brewer (25 February 1818 – 10 January 1886) was a naturalist, plant-collector,

botanist 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 ...

, a writer of local

flora Flora is all the plant life present in a particular region or time, generally the naturally occurring (indigenous) native plants. Sometimes bacteria and fungi are also referred to as flora, as in the terms '' gut flora'' or '' skin flora''. E ...

s, a beetle-collector, and a

postmaster A postmaster is the head of an individual post office, responsible for all postal activities in a specific post office. When a postmaster is responsible for an entire mail distribution organization (usually sponsored by a national government), ...

in the British Post Office. He was a member of the

Botanical Society of London The Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland (BSBI) is a scientific society for the study of flora, plant distribution and taxonomy relating to Great Britain, Ireland, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. The society was founded as the Botani ...

, a member of the

Linnean Society of London The Linnean Society of London is a learned society dedicated to the study and dissemination of information concerning natural history, evolution, and taxonomy. It possesses several important biological specimen, manuscript and literature colle ...

, and the first honorary secretary of the 'Holmesdale Natural History Club' in

Reigate Reigate ( ) is a town status in the United Kingdom, town in Surrey, England, around south of central London. The settlement is recorded in Domesday Book in 1086 as ''Cherchefelle'' and first appears with its modern name in the 1190s. The earlie ...

, in the

Vale of Homesdale A vale is a type of valley. Vale may also refer to: Places Georgia * Vale, Georgia, a town in the Samtskhe-Javakheti region Norway * Våle, a historic municipality Portugal * Vale (Santa Maria da Feira), a former civil parish in the municipal ...

. In 1856 he published a ''New flora of the neighborhood of Reigate, Surrey'', and in 1861 he was asked by the 'Holmesdale Natural History Club' to edit for publication the manuscript of

John Drew Salmon John Drew Salmon (4 September 1802 – 1859) was an English ornithologist and botanist. Life Born on 4 September 1802, Salmon lived from 1825 to 1833 at Stoke Ferry and from 1833 to 1837 at Thetford, Norfolk, then moving to Godalming, Surrey. H ...

s on the ''Flora of Surrey''. Brewer was elected a Fellow of the Linnean Society of London in 1856. He collected plants and insects in Great Britain and Australia. Brewer died on 10 January 1886 in

Tonbridge Tonbridge ( ) is a market town in Kent, England, on the River Medway, north of Royal Tunbridge Wells, south west of Maidstone and south east of London. In the administrative borough of Tonbridge and Malling, it had an estimated population ...

, Kent.

Bibliography

* * For Brewer 1863, see also: , , , , (sometimes the date is given as 1868).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Brewer, James Alexander 1818 births 1886 deaths 19th-century British botanists