George Buchanan Wollaston (26 April 1814, Clapton, Middlesex – 26 March 1899, Chislehurst, London Borough of Bromley)[1] was an English architect, watercolourist, and amateur botanist. He is famous for his collection and cultivation of British ferns.[2]
Biography
editMuch of his family had lived in Chislehurst and his paternal grandfather Francis Wollaston was Anglican rector there from 1769 to 1815.[3][1] George Buchanan Wollaston attended grammar school at The King's School, Ottery St Mary.[4] He was apprenticed to the architect Augustus Pugin and worked as an architect for a number of years.[2] During his apprenticeship, Wollaston became an accomplished watercolourist. He inherited the property Conduit Lodge in Eltham, London Borough of Greenwich.[4][5] After this inheritance he worked very little as an architect and devoted himself to botanical study involving collecting and growing plants, especially ferns[2] (and some orchids).[6] Using the money gained by selling the Conduit Lodge property, he bought in Chislehurst the small property called Bishop's Well, where he lived from about 1853 until his death in 1899.[2]
In the late 1850s, Wollaston supervised renovations and repairs of the Anglican church of St. Nicholas in Chislehurst.[4][7]
He contributed articles to The Phytologist.[2] Frederick Janson Hanbury and Edward Shearburn Marshall mention Wollaston's name 33 times in their 1899 book Flora of Kent.[8]
In August 1843 he married his cousin Julia Adye Catharine Buchanan (1816–1910).[1] Three of their children died in infancy.[9] Their son Stanley George Buchanan-Wollaston (1848–1923)[10] was the father of Herbert Arthur Buchanan-Wollaston.
In May 1981 the Covent Garden Gallery at 20 Great Russell Street exhibited some of Wollaston's watercolour drawings of rural England in the 1880s.[11]
References
edit- ^ a b c Howard, Joseph Jackson; Crisp, Frederick Arthur, eds. (1904). Visitation of England and Wales. Vol. 12. Priv. print. p. 75.
- ^ a b c d e Journal of Botany: British and Foreign. Vol. 37. West, Newman & Company. 1899. pp. 447–448.
- ^ "Wollaston, Francis (WLSN748F)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
- ^ a b c "George Buchanan Wollaston (1814-99)". The Swan Gallery.
- ^ Bedford, Kristina (2013). Eltham Through Time. Amberley Publishing. ISBN 9781445616094.
- ^ Secret Chislehurst. Amberley Publishing Limited. 15 October 2015. ISBN 9781445645698.
- ^ "The Kentish Rambler. Chislehurst". The Bromley Record and Monthly Advertiser. 3 (90): 33. September 1, 1862.
- ^ Hanbury, Frederick Janson; Marshall, Edward Shearburn (1899). Flora of Kent.
- ^ Webb, Edward Alfred (1899). The History of Chislehurst: Its Church, Manors, and Parish. G. Allen. p. 72.
- ^ "Stanley George Buchanan Wollaston". Grace's Guide to British Industrial History.
- ^ "Exhibitions. May 1981". The Illustrated London News. 269. 1981.
- ^ International Plant Names Index. Woll.
External links
edit
- "St Mary Cray Railway Viaduct (1881 painting by George Buchanan Wollaston)". Lost Orpington & Around. Amberley Publishing Limited. 15 August 2019. p. 187. ISBN 9781445651750.
- "Original watercolours by George Buchanan Wollaston". The Swan Gallery.