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AENEAS MACINTYRE: A FORGOTTEN ESSEX
BOTANIST.
BY MILLER CHRISTY, F.L.S.
FOR some years past, I have been puzzled as to the identity
of this man, who "flourished" (as the term is) during the
second quarter of last century. My interest in him arose from
the fact that he was evidently a man of good standing and
education, possessing considerable attainments as a botanist and
in other ways, and that he had clearly some connection with Essex.
Yet I have failed completely, thus far, to learn anything as to
his origin, personality, occupation, and end. Messrs. Britten
& Boulger, whose Biographical Dictionary of British and Irish
Botanists is usually so helpful in such a matter, give none but
the most meagre information in regard to him.
The earliest fact connected with him which I have been
able to ascertain is that, on 19th April 1825, when he was living
at Stockwell Park, Surrey, he was proposed as a Fellow of the
Linnean Society, his proposers being Thomas Bell, William
Kent, R. Taylor, and G. E. Bitcheno. He was duly elected on
the 1st November following. Thereafter, his name appears
frequently in the Minute Books, as having received permission
to borrow books from the Library, and he is known to have
remained a Fellow for nearly twenty years. During that period
he changed his place of residence several times, as shown by the
successive annual Lists of Fellows. Thus, he lived successively
at Notting Hill (1829-31), Bouverie Street, E.G. (1832), and West
Ham, Essex (1840). For this information, I am indebted to
the kindness of Dr. B. Daydon Jackson, the General Secretary
of the Linnean Society.
Some seven years later, in 1832, we find him publishing
a small work containing An Examination of the "Official Relative
Lists of Boroughs" and of the Plan on which it is constructed
(London, Hatchard & Son, 16 pp., dy. 8°, 1832). The matter
in it consists of some remarks concerning the rating or taxation
of Boroughs, which the author had submitted to Lord Liverpool,
then Prime Minister, but apparently without result. It is a
small and very abstruse work, full of mathematical formula.
Four years later, in 1836, he published a rather larger work