British Museum (Natural History): Department of Botany: 'Biographical Index' by Britten,...

This series consists of the correspondence, notes and annotated copies left to Alfred B Rendle by James Britten, together with the card index, notes and further correspondence that he himself generated. The papers contain much information not published in the Biographical index.

Series held at The Natural History Museum are catalogued more fully in its online catalogue . Online descriptions of some individual records can also be viewed on Discovery, see DF 410.

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A biographical index of British and Irish botanists by James Britten (1846-1924) and George S Boulger (1853-1922) was first published in instalments in the Journal of Botany between 1888 and 1891, and was revised and published as a book in 1893. Supplements were issued in 1899, 1905 and 1908, and the authors made some progress on a new edition before their deaths. In his will, Britten left the production of the second edition to Alfred B Rendle (1865-1938), but the task was so great that it was not completed until 1931, the year after Rendle's retirement from the Museum. He received a large amount of help from John Ardagh (1885-1949), who was the clerk in charge of the Botany Library.

Although never strictly speaking an official Museum project, the Biographical index of British and Irish botanists was closely associated with the Department of Botany for many years. In 1977 R G C Desmond published a complete revision of the work, entitled Dictionary of British and Irish botanists and horticulturalists.