William West Jr

William West Jr, ARCS, (11 February 1875 – 14 September 1901) was an English botanist. He was the elder son of the botanist William West, and the brother of George Stephen West. West assisted his father in fieldwork. He wrote papers on flowering plants and phycology for various journals. His official botanical author-abbreviation was W. West, although his authorship in journals was cited as W. West Jun.

West showed great promise in his youth, gaining a scholarship to Bradford Technical College at age 10. At age 14 he won a Royal Exhibition to attend the Royal College of Science, where his achievements in botany won him the Forbes Medal. At age 16 he gained a scholarship to St John's College, Cambridge.

He travelled to India to begin a career in which it was hoped that he might discover ways to identify and control fungoid diseases which were attacking indigo plants, which were farmed for commercial dyes. Within three weeks of his arrival in the country, he had died of cholera at the age of 26.

Background

William West, born in Bradford on 11 February 1875, was the first son of the botanist William West of Bradford, West Riding of Yorkshire, England. His brother was the botanist George Stephen West. "His botanical acumen was so well developed that at the early age of 14 he was able to set the British Museum curators right as to the determination of an obscure Elatine displayed in the public galleries".

West gained a foundation scholarship, when only sixteen years old, to St John's College, Cambridge, He also "went botanising" with his father, assisting him in his fieldwork.

Publications West was 16 years old when he published his first note in a scientific journal. The subject matter of his publications in The Naturalist was the British flowering plants, "which gained for him considerable scientific reputation". He travelled from Bombay to Calcutta to visit a Cambridge acquaintance and "reporter on economic products", Isaac Henry Burkill. From there he returned to Bombay, then arrived at Muzaffarpur on 27 August to start work. Being "in thoroughly good health", he wrote letters home. His family received the news via cablegram on 17 September. The Englishman's Overland Mail reported: "There is something very tragic in the sudden close of a career whose opening chapters were both interesting and brilliant". The Bradford Observer said:

The work which lay before [West] in India in the study of the fungoid diseases which attack the indigo and other plants of commercial value promised ample opportunities of adding to that reputation. But it was not in science alone that he excelled, and it was in literature that his friends prophesied for him a brilliant future; hopes which are bitterly disappointed.

William Denison Roebuck commented in The Naturalist:

[West's] personal characteristics included not only extreme accuracy and wide grasp, and the extraordinary retentive memory which so greatly facilitated his botanical studies, but a most amiable and lovable disposition which endeared him to all who had the privilege of knowing him, and who consequently feel deeply and grievously the weight of the affliction which the untimely close of his career brings upon us".

The Journal of Botany, British and Foreign said:

[West] from his earliest years displayed remarkable precocity ... From a very early age, under the tuition of his father, he devoted much attention to botany ... West was a man of general accomplishments; he was interested in music and the drama, and his friends anticipated for him a brilliant literary career.