William Allport Leighton (17 May 1805 – 28 February 1889) was an English
Church of England
The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britain ...
clergyman and botanist.
Life
He was the only son of William and Lucy Maria Leighton. His mother was the daughter and coheiress of John Allport of Prescot, near
Baschurch
Baschurch is a large village and civil parish in Shropshire, England.
It lies in North Shropshire, north-west of Shrewsbury. The village has a population of 2,503 as of the 2011 census. The village has strong links to Shrewsbury to the south-e ...
, Shropshire. His father was the keeper of the Talbot Hotel in
Shrewsbury
Shrewsbury ( , also ) is a market town, civil parish, and the county town of Shropshire, England, on the River Severn, north-west of London; at the 2021 census, it had a population of 76,782. The town's name can be pronounced as either 'Sh ...
, and the son was born there on 17 May 1805. He went to school at the Unitarian Manse on Claremont Hill, Shrewsbury, with
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all species of life have descended fr ...
, who first encouraged him to be interested in plants. He went on to Wolverhampton Grammar School, and in 1822 was articled to a solicitor in Shrewsbury.
On the death of his father he abandoned the study of the law in favour of the church. He matriculated at
St John's College, Cambridge
St John's College is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge founded by the House of Tudor, Tudor matriarch Lady Margaret Beaufort. In constitutional terms, the college is a charitable corpo ...
, and graduated B.A. in 1833. Having been a pupil of John Stevens Henslow, Leighton on his return to his native town deferred ordination in order to draw up a flora of Shropshire. In 1843 he was ordained deacon and priest, and took on clerical duties in Shrewsbury until 1848, when he resigned his curacy at St Giles' Church, and thenceforward occupied himself entirely with botany.
Leighton suffered from deteriorating eyesight, and soon after 1879 gave up his studies; he donated his collection to the national herbarium at
Kew Gardens
Kew Gardens is a botanical garden, botanic garden in southwest London that houses the "largest and most diverse botany, botanical and mycology, mycological collections in the world". Founded in 1840, from the exotic garden at Kew Park, its li ...
. He died at Lucifelde, Shrewsbury, on 28 February 1889, aged eighty-three, and was buried in the Shrewsbury General Cemetery in nearby Longden Road.
Works
In 1841, he brought out his ''Flora of Shropshire'', the etchings to illustrate some of the genera being his own. He then began working on the cryptogams, and in 1851 the
Ray Society
The Ray Society is a scientific text publication society that publishes works devoted principally to British flora and fauna. As of 2019, it had published 181 volumes. Its publications are predominantly academic works of interest to naturalists, zo ...
published his ''Angiocarpous Lichens elucidated by their Sporidia''. From that date onward Leighton published widely in the literature on
lichen
A lichen ( , ) is a composite organism that arises from algae or cyanobacteria living among filaments of multiple fungi species in a mutualistic relationship.
In an 1854 work, Leighton coined the term to refer to the small, spot-like characteristic of the lichen family
Arthoniaceae
The Arthoniaceae are a family of lichenized, lichenicolous and saprobic fungi in the order Arthoniales. The Arthoniaceae is the largest family of Arthoniales, with around 800 species. Most species in Arthoniaceae belong in '' Arthonia'' which is ...
.
Family
Leighton married, first, in 1827, Catherine, youngest daughter of David Parkes, a Shrewsbury antiquary, and they had one son and two daughters at her death ; secondly, Mrs. Gibson, and they had a son.