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William West
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William West
William West
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Watercolour portrait of William West.
from John Sowden's notebooks:
"Mr West was a native of Leeds and was born in 1848. He studied for the pharmaceutical profession and in 1870 passed his examination and was registered. In 1872 he set up business in Bradford. In 1886 he gave up his business to devote himself to his appointment as Lecturer in Botany at the Bradford Technical College, afterwards adding biology and materia medica to his curriculum.
He was a most enthusiastic teacher. His botanical rambles will ever be remembered by his students. His botanical career apart from the early study began about 1877.
He was a hard worker in the Yorkshire National Naturalists Union and was Secretary of the Botanical Section for some time and then President. In scientific circles Mr West was recognised as one of the greatest living botanists. For many years he carried on a laborious work on the algae, at first entirely alone and late in conjunction with his son, Professor GS West, now Professor of Botany at the University of Birmingham. His great classification - encouraged by the Royal Society and published at their own cost - of the enormous group of obscure but very beautiful microscopical plants called ‘desmids’ extended to several volumes, and included hundreds of descriptions and joins unknown to science.
He also prepared an ‘Algae Flora of Yorkshire’ which was published by the Yorkshire Naturalists’ Union.
His reputation in field study brought him also for study, material collected from all parts of the world.
He was associated with Dr Fred Arnold Lees of Leeds in the compilation of ‘The Flora of West Yorkshire’.
He was a fellow of the Linnaen Society and contributed largely to its publications. He was an ex-president of the Yorkshire Naturalists’ Union, the Bradford Scientific Association and the Bradford Natural History Society.
Mr West left one son and one daughter. He died in 1914."
Year
1910
Creator
John Sowden.
Image filename
sowden-298
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