John Houghton (1645–1705) was an English apothecary and writer on agriculture and trade, a

Fellow of the Royal Society Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the judges of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural knowledge, including mathemat ...

Life

Houghton studied for a time at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. He subsequently became an apothecary and dealer in tea, coffee, chocolate, and other luxuries. First he traded by the Ship Tavern in St Bartholomew Lane, St Bartholomew-by-the-Exchange, behind the Royal Exchange. By 14 December 1703 he was at the Golden Fleece, on the corner of Little Eastcheap in

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, London. A kind of agent for advertisers, Houghton had his newspaper advertisements appended to his ''Collections''. On 19 July 1695, Houghton printed the first

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from a man seeking a wife in ''A Collection for Improvement of Husbandry and Trade'', initiating the "lonely hearts" industry. He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society. on 29 January 1680, and served on the society's committee for agriculture. He died in 1705.

Works

Houghton edited a periodical, ''A Collection of Letters for the Improvement of Husbandry & Trade'', published as two vols. London, 1681–3. The authors of the letters included

John Evelyn John Evelyn (31 October 162027 February 1706) was an English writer, landowner, gardener, courtier and minor government official, who is now best known as a diarist. He was a founding Fellow of the Royal Society. John Evelyn's diary, or ...

and

John Worlidge John Worlidge or John Woolridge (1640–1700) was a noted English agriculturalist, who lived in Petersfield, Hampshire, England. He was considered a great expert on rural affairs, and one of the first British agriculturalists to discuss the import ...

. Houghton first noticed the

potato plant The potato is a starchy food, a tuber of the plant ''Solanum tuberosum'' and is a root vegetable native to the Americas. The plant is a perennial in the nightshade family Solanaceae. Wild potato species can be found from the southern Unite ...

as an agricultural vegetable, and that

turnip The turnip or white turnip ('' Brassica rapa'' subsp. ''rapa'') is a root vegetable commonly grown in temperate climates worldwide for its white, fleshy taproot. The word ''turnip'' is a compound of ''turn'' as in turned/rounded on a lathe and ...

s were eaten by sheep. In November 1691 Houghton issued, with the support of leading Fellows of the Royal Society, ''A Proposal for Improvement of Husbandry and Trade'', which later took the shape of another ''Collection'' published in weekly folio numbers, of which the first appeared on 30 March 1692, and the last (No. 583) on 24 September 1703. In all, according to the editor's plan, 19 volumes appeared. A selection in four volumes was published by Richard Bradley in 1727–8, with the title ''A Catalogue of all sorts of Earths, the Art of Draining, of Brewing, of all sorts of Husbandry''. Houghton also published in 1693 a sixpenny sheet, containing ''An Account of the Acres and Houses, with the proportional tax … of each county in England and Wales'' (reprinted in ''

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'', ed. Scott, x. 596). To '' Philosophical Transactions'' he contributed in 1699 "A Discourse of Coffee" and "The Conclusion of the Protestant States of the Empire, of the 23d of Sept. 1699 concerning the Calendar".

Family

On 11 November 1687 Houghton married Elizabeth Claget of Greenwich in 1687.

Notes

;Attribution {{DEFAULTSORT:Houghton, John 1645 births 1705 deaths English apothecaries English writers Fellows of the Royal Society