John Horsefield

Tigridia conchiflora var. 'Watkinsoni', a lily first hybridised by John Horsefield John Horsefield (18 July 1792 – 6 March 1854) was an English handloom weaver and amateur botanist after whom the daffodil Narcissus 'Horsfieldii' is named. Horsefield had little formal schooling, and acquired most of his botanical knowledge through self-study and involvement in local botanical groups, which provided a venue for working class people to share knowledge, in part by pooling money to purchase books.

Horsefield founded one such society, the Prestwich Botanical Society, and was later president of a larger botanical society covering a wide area around north Manchester. He made several botanical discoveries and cultivated two new plants. A number of his writings about the working class and also some poetry were published, but nothing concerning botany other than in connection with the subject of the working class. He lived most of his life near Whitefield in Lancashire, in dire poverty. At the time of his death he had been married for 42 years and had fathered eleven children.

Early life Born on 18 July 1792, John Horsefield was the eldest son of Charles Horsefield, a barely literate man from whom he received encouragement in his early botanical interests. His birthplace was probably Besses o' th' Barn in Whitefield close to Prestwich, which became his home. His mother claimed he was born "dead" and had to be revived; his childhood was dogged by poor health.

Horsefield learned to read during a single year's attendance at school when he was six, after which he went to work for a gingham weaver. His education continued with twice-weekly evening tuition in writing and arithmetic until he was around 15 years old. James Cash, a journalist, amateur botanist and the first chairman of the Manchester Cryptogamic Society, says Horsefield received some education for a short time when he started work: the weaver for whom he served charged two shillings (10p) per calendar quarter to instruct his young employees in reading. This instruction took the form of the employees reading out lessons to him while they worked at their handlooms. An avid reader, his interest in botany was piqued when he obtained a copy of Nicholas Culpeper's 1653 book, The Complete Herbal, of which he said, "The wonderful properties that are there ascribed to plants excited in me a strong desire to get acquainted with the plants themselves." Thereafter he attended working-men's botanical societies and meetings in public houses, thus meeting a broad church of people with interests not only in the science of botany but also in floriculture, herbalism and horticulture.

Horsefield and his father were members of an early 19th-century loose grouping of Mancunian amateur botanists, botanical society for working men in Whitefield. Horsefield attended meetings of the former group in 1808, which was referred to as the "Manchester Society of Botanists"

The Whitefield society arranged for funds to be pooled to buy books for communal use, enabling the 16-year-old Horsefield to read James Lee's 1760 work, An Introduction to Botany. It provided information on Linnaean taxonomy as it applied to plants, and from it Horsefield copied details onto a piece of paper he pinned to his loom to commit them to memory while he was working. He earned the respect of other botanists for his abilities in the sphere of collection and identification of species and was the first to find the Entosthodon templetoni moss in England.

Horsfield met his future wife Esther Eccorsley (1793/94 – 1872) at a botanical meeting in 1812. The couple were married on 20 December 1812 at St Mary's Church, Oldham.

Leadership The meetings he attended in his early life were a part of a movement in the study of botany by artisans. This had been initiated by George Caley, James Crowther, John Dewhurst, John Mellor and Edward Hobson, the last of whom Horsefield met in 1809 at a meeting held at Radcliffe Bridge and whose knowledge he held in high regard. It was part of a broader working class movement involving the study of nature and natural history that developed in the late 18th century and continued into the next.

There is some evidence to suggest that in the period of social unrest that followed the end of the Napoleonic Wars, and which saw the introduction of the Seditious Meetings Act, gatherings of botanists may have been used as cover for the activities of politically radical reformers such as Samuel Bamford.

The Peterloo Massacre was the last political meeting Horsefield attended, although he retained a general interest in the subject of radical politics. supported the idea of self-education and, according to Harvey Taylor, a historian, "typified the Lancashire autodidactic seeker after self-culture." Having obtained his own garden in 1819, he promoted his interests by founding the Prestwich Botanical Society on 11 September 1820, presiding over meetings in a pub where plant specimens were brought together for identification and where those who could not read were taught the science of botany by those who could. He was president of the society for 32 years, during which time at least 131 books were purchased by the society for communal use. Writing in December 1829, Horsefield explained that the Prestwich Society met on the second Monday of each month and usually had between 12 and 20 members, who were charged a monthly 6d. (2½p) subscription. The subscription, which was common to such societies, was intended to pay for books and create a fund for the purchase of drink; the pub landlord provided the meeting and storage space at no charge as long as sufficient drink was consumed, a practice known as "wet rent".

In 1830 he succeeded Hobson as president of an organisation with a wider geographical base and which held Sunday meetings in pubs for the purpose of educating the amateur artisan botanists. described this body as "the united societies of the whole district", Horsefield explained the didactic purpose of these societies as e instruct one another by continually meeting together; so that the knowledge of one becomes the knowledge of all, and we make up for the deficiency of education by constant application to the subject. He composed verses, including The Botanists' Song, which acknowledged the conviviality obtained from meeting in pubs with the words "science circles with the glass".

Horsefield did not confine his scientific interests to botany, as he also studied algebra, mensuration and astronomy. John Horsefield developed an interest in the subject to the extent that he constructed an orrery, much to the bewilderment of his neighbours. – Tigridia conchiflora – in his garden and sold it to a Manchester nurseryman, Thomas Watkinson, for £10. (Horsefield produced the hybrid by fertilising the seeds of a conchiflora with the pollen of a pavonia but the plant was named in honour of the nurseryman who produced the first botanical drawing of it.) Horsefield received £13 10s. from a subscription that was started in 1853 in another attempt to alleviate his penurious state. After his death on 6 March 1854, Esther, with whom he had six sons and five daughters, received £37 from this fund, and he left 37 bulbs of one of the earliest hybrid daffodils to be cultivated, Narcissus horsefieldii, that raised another £2 11s (£2.55). He was buried on 10 March 1854 at the St. Mary's Church, Prestwich, His table tomb was listed as a Grade II monument by English Heritage in 2012.

The epitaph on his tomb was written by Charles Swain (1807–1874). It reads:

Ye who behold God's works in Nature's ways And find in flowers mute anthems to His praise Who read the volume of eternal love In seeds of earth as in the stars above Here read a name whose fame shall long endure. One of poor birth, but Gifted although poor: God – unlike man – the humblest spirit lifts Nor asks his wealth before He sends His gifts! Where'er Botanic science could be learn'd New links disclosed – new species yet discerned Where'er by wood or lane or heath or hill God op'ed the book that taught Botanic skill There HORSEFIELD's foot from dawn to eve was seen to learn – to teach – to be what he has been, An honour to the soil that gave him birth: Oh, may that spirit for whose loss we grieve Our God accept – our Saviour Lord receive. and Grindon wrote in 1882 that Horsefield was "one of the most celebrated of the old Lancashire operative botanists". Esther died on 17 June 1872. Their son, James, and his wife, Alice, are also commemorated on the headstone.