Nathaniel Bagshaw Ward
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Nathaniel Bagshaw Ward (1791 – 4 June 1868 in St Leonard's, Sussex) was an English doctor who popularised a case for growing and transporting plants which was called the
Wardian case The Wardian case was an early type of terrarium, a sealed protective container for plants. It found great use in the 19th century in protecting foreign plants imported to Europe from overseas, the great majority of which had previously died from ...
.


Biography

Ward was born in London to Stephen Smith Ward, a medical doctor. Little is known of his early years and family life, but he is believed to have been sent to Jamaica at the age of thirteen where he may have taken an interest in plants. He practised medicine in a poor area of the East End of London and took an interest in botany and entomology in spare time or when on vacation in Cobham, Kent. Tytler Whittle in his book, ''The Plant Hunters'', describes the area where he lived: Ward qualified as a member of the
Royal College of Surgeons The Royal College of Surgeons is an ancient college (a form of corporation) established in England to regulate the activity of surgeons. Derivative organisations survive in many present and former members of the Commonwealth. These organisations a ...
in London in 1814, then later became a fellow of the
Linnean Society 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 ...
in 1852. His four sons, Stephen (born 1819), Nathaniel (born 1821), John (born 1824) and Richard (born 1831) all went on to qualify as doctors and surgeons. Stephen and Nathaniel after qualifying both worked as assistants with their father at the family East End practice. John joined the
Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...
in 1846 as an
assistant surgeon A surgeon's mate was a rank in the Royal Navy for a medically trained assistant to the ship's surgeon. The rank was renamed assistant surgeon in 1805, and was considered equivalent to the rank of master's mate/mate. In 1807, first-rate would ...
, serving with distinction during the
Crimea War The Crimean War, , was fought from October 1853 to February 1856 between Russia and an ultimately victorious alliance of the Ottoman Empire, France, the United Kingdom and Piedmont-Sardinia. Geopolitical causes of the war included the d ...
, with the youngest son Richard having his own practice in Central London.


Ward and the Wardian case

Ward first noticed the effects of a hermetically sealed glass container in 1829. He had placed a chrysalis of a
sphinx moth The Sphingidae are a family of moths (Lepidoptera) called sphinx moths, also colloquially known as hawk moths, with many of their caterpillars known as “hornworms”; it includes about 1,450 species. It is best represented in the tropics, but ...
in damp soil at the bottom of a bottle and covered it with a lid. A week later he noticed that a fern and grass seedling had sprouted from the soil. His interest piqued, he saw that evaporated moisture condensed on the walls of the bottle during the day, and ran back down into the soil towards evening, maintaining a constant humidity. The glass case that he used to rear butterflies and grow plants was used widely during the time for introducing plants into the British colonies. His first experiments with plants inside glass cases started in 1830. In 1833
George Loddiges George Loddiges (1784/1786 – 5 May 1846) was a British gardener, artist, and naturalist. He worked in the nursery business established by his father and illustrated nearly 2000 plates of plants in the nursery's own periodical, the Botanical Cabin ...
used Wardian cases for shipping plants from Australia and said that "whereas I used formerly to lose nineteen out of the twenty of the plants I imported during the voyage, nineteen out of the twenty is now the average of those that survive". Loddiges was the vice-president of the Horticultural Society and Wardian cases became popular. He attempted to make a greenhouse at the Clapham garden on the principle of the Wardian case. This was however critiqued by
John Lindley John Lindley FRS (5 February 1799 – 1 November 1865) was an English botanist, gardener and orchidologist. Early years Born in Catton, near Norwich, England, John Lindley was one of four children of George and Mary Lindley. George Lindley w ...
in the ''
Gardeners' Chronicle ''The Gardeners' Chronicle'' was a British horticulture periodical. It lasted as a title in its own right for nearly 150 years and is still extant as part of the magazine '' Horticulture Week''. History Founded in 1841 by the horticulturists Jose ...
'', who wrote that "when it is opened and shut from day to day, it has no more right to the name f Wardian casethan a common greenhouse". Lindley also wrote saying that Ward had an inordinate vanity and a desire to be "recognised sa second Newton". Dr Ward delivered a lecture on his discovery of a way to preserve plants in 1854 to the
Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...
at the
Chelsea Physic Garden The Chelsea Physic Garden was established as the Apothecaries' Garden in London, England, in 1673 by the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries to grow plants to be used as medicines. This four acre physic garden, the term here referring to the sc ...
. He also worked on microscopy and helped in the development of the Chelsea Physic Garden as a member of the board. He was elected 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 science, natural knowledge, incl ...
in 1852. Nathaniel Bagshaw Ward died at St Leonards in Sussex and is buried in an unmarked grave in
West Norwood Cemetery West Norwood Cemetery is a rural cemetery in West Norwood in London, England. It was also known as the South Metropolitan Cemetery. One of the first private landscaped cemeteries in London, it is one of the " Magnificent Seven" cemeteries of L ...
He was honoured in 1837, when botanists
William Henry Harvey William Henry Harvey, FRS FLS (5 February 1811 – 15 May 1866) was an Irish botanist and phycologist who specialised in algae. Biography Harvey was born at Summerville near Limerick, Ireland, in 1811, the youngest of 11 children. His father ...
and
William Jackson Hooker Sir William Jackson Hooker (6 July 178512 August 1865) was an English botanist and botanical illustrator, who became the first director of Kew when in 1841 it was recommended to be placed under state ownership as a botanic garden. At Kew he ...
named a species of
moss Mosses are small, non-vascular flowerless plants in the taxonomic division Bryophyta (, ) '' sensu stricto''. Bryophyta (''sensu lato'', Schimp. 1879) may also refer to the parent group bryophytes, which comprise liverworts, mosses, and hor ...
from South Africa after him, ''
Wardia ''Wardia'' is a monotypic genus of mosses in the subclass Dicranidae; it contains only the species ''Wardia hygrometrica'', "an aquatic moss endemic to the Western Cape province of South Africa."Hedderson, Terry A., Cymon J. Cox, & J. George Gib ...
''.


References


Other sources

* Allen, D.E. ''The Victorian Fern Craze''. London: Hutchinson, 1969. (p 8-9) * Allen, D.E. ''The Naturalist in Britain - A Social History''. London: Allen Lane, 1976. * Desmond, Ray "The problems of transporting plants". ''In The Garden: a Celebration of One Thousand Years of British Gardening''. Harris J ed. London, 1979, pp. 99–104. * Hooker, J.D. Nathaniel Bagshaw Ward, FRS, FLS. ''Gardeners' Chronicle'', 1868, pp. 655–6. * Minter, S. ''The Apothecaries' Garden: a History of the Chelsea Physic Garden''. London, 2002.


External links


Biography

Norwood cemetery

Scan of Ward's publication
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ward, Nathaniel Bagshaw 1791 births 1868 deaths 19th-century English medical doctors English botanists Fellows of the Royal Society Fellows of the Linnean Society of London Burials at West Norwood Cemetery