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 1822 - 1892 (70 years)
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| Name |
John Gibbs |
| Born |
1822 |
Southwark  |
| Gender |
Male |
| Occupation |
Botanist |
- JOHN GIBBS : AN ESSEX BOTANIST.
Natural Science. I knew him in my early boyhood. He will be remembered also by not a few members of the Essex Field Club and of the "Chelmsford Set of Odd Volumes." Of both these bodies, he was a member for some years towards the end of his life. In the last-named, he formed "Volume 40." Yet his last years were spent in such poverty and obscurity that,when he died, his passing away was hardly known to his friends of earlier years, and his death went almost unrecorded. For this reason, information as to his life-history has been hitherto almost unobtainable. Mr. Britten and Prof. Boulger, authors of The Biographical Index of British and Irish Botanists (1893, with later supplements), have asked me more than once to supply them with biographical matter relating to him, but I
have been unable to do so until now. Within the last few weeks, however, the discovery of a totally-forgotten bundle of letters which he wrote me more than thirty years ago and the receipt of other information (kindly obtained for me by Mr.Henry Mothersole) have revived my recollection of him and enabled me to put together the following very-belated obituary notice.
Gibbs was not an Essex man by birth, though he spent practically the whole of his life in the county. He was born in 1822, "within a mile of London Bridge, in Bermondsey Street, on a spot now covered by the Railway Arches," as he informed me in letters written in February 1881. His wife (whose maiden name I do not know) was born in 1824, also in London. Early in life (but in what year I know not), he settled in Chelms-ford, where he followed his trade—that of a wool-sorter. In this work, he is said to have been very expert. He worked for many years—all his active life, I believe—for the old-established firm of W. & T. Johns, wool-staplers, of the Baddow Road, Chelmsford; which firm ceased to exist some ten or twenty years ago, having long been the only firm in the county to carry on this business.The income Gibbs derived from his trade was small at best; and it tended to become steadily smaller as the industry in which he was engaged gradually died out in the district. He
held a Certificate from South Kensington as a Teacher of Botany; and, as early as 1858, he was already adding to his income by teaching botany classes at the local Literary and Mechanics'
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| Occupation |
Wool Sorter |
| Died |
1892 |
Aylesbury |
| Person ID |
I1371 |
Genealogy |
| Last Modified |
29 Mar 2015 |
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