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JOHN GIBBS (1822-1903), AN ESSEX BOTANIST :
Supplementary Note.
by Miller Christy F.L.S.
IT has been, I suppose, the experience of everyone accus-
tomed to write articles on historical or biographical subjects,
involving (as they usually do) much inquiry and research, that
no sooner has such an article been published than friends and
others at once communicate to the writer additional information
in regard to the subject or person written upon, often thus
elucidating obscure points which the author had failed to solve,
in spite of having used his best efforts.
Such, at any rate, has been my experience in connection
with the article on John Gibbs, the botanist, of Chelmsford,
which I published recently in these pages.1 I referred therein
to a married daughter of Gibbs', whose name and address I
had been totally unable to ascertain, in spite of enquiry in likely
quarters. Yet my article had not been published more than a
few days before I heard from our member. Miss May Thresh,
of Chelmsford (who had known Gibbs and his wife well when
they lived in the. town), that the daughter in question (now
widowed) was Mrs. Larkin, who. after holding scholastic posts
in many distant counties, had, by a strange coincidence, recently
settled down as mistress cf the Church of England Schools at
High Easter, no more than about six miles from my own door !
This lady has now been good enough to provide me with informa-
tion in regard to her father which enables me to correct, in the
following paragraphs, certain errors into which I had fallen.
I was wrong, it seems, in assuming, from the exceedingly
modest circumstances in which Gibbs was living when I knew
him, that he was of humble origin. As a matter of fact, he was
descended from people of quite good standing, as I ought to
have inferred from his strong character, excellent ability, and
other personal characteristics. His family came, originally
from Wiltshire. He himself was descended (as Mrs. Larkin
informs me) from a sister of Sir Thomas Millington (1628-1704),
the very eminent physician attached to the courts of William
and Mary and Queen Ann, President of the Royal College of
Physicians, and one of the founders of the Royal Society. The
1 See ante, pp. 89-96.