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John Horsefield (18 July 1792 – 6 March 1854) was an English handloom weaver and amateur botanist after whom the daffodil ''Narcissus'' 'Horsfieldii' is named. Horsefield had little formal schooling, and acquired most of his botanical knowledge through self-study and involvement in local botanical groups, which provided a venue for working class people to share knowledge, in part by pooling money to purchase books. Horsefield founded one such society, the Prestwich Botanical Society, and was later president of a larger botanical society covering a wide area around north Manchester. He made several botanical discoveries and cultivated two new plants. A number of his writings about the working class and also some poetry were published, but nothing concerning botany other than in connection with the subject of the working class. He lived most of his life near Whitefield in Lancashire, in dire poverty. At the time of his death he had been married for 42 years and had fathered eleven children. == Early life == Born on 18 July 1792, John Horsefield was the eldest son of Charles Horsefield, a barely literate man from whom he received encouragement in his early botanical interests.〔 He reminisced in later life that both his father and his grandfather had been interested in botany and in floriculture.〔Cash (2011), p. 67.〕 His birthplace was probably Besses o' th' Barn in Whitefield close to Prestwich, which became his home. His mother claimed he was born "dead" and had to be revived; his childhood was dogged by poor health.〔Secord, "Horsefield, John (1792 – 1854), botanist and weaver".〕 Horsefield learned to read during a single year's attendance at school when he was six, after which he went to work for a gingham weaver. His education continued with twice-weekly evening tuition in writing and arithmetic until he was around 15 years old. James Cash, a journalist, amateur botanist and the first chairman of the Manchester Cryptogamic Society,〔Manchester Museum Herbarium (2010)〕 says Horsefield received some education for a short time when he started work: the weaver for whom he served charged two shillings (10p) per calendar quarter to instruct his young employees in reading. This instruction took the form of the employees reading out lessons to him while they worked at their handlooms. An avid reader, his interest in botany was piqued when he obtained a copy of Nicholas Culpeper's 1653 book, ''The Complete Herbal'', of which he said, "The wonderful properties that are there ascribed to plants excited in me a strong desire to get acquainted with the plants themselves." Thereafter he attended working-men's botanical societies and meetings in public houses,〔〔Cash (2011), pp. 67–68.〕 thus meeting a broad church of people with interests not only in the science of botany but also in floriculture, herbalism and horticulture.〔Secord (1996), p. 383.〕 Horsefield and his father were members of an early-19th century loose grouping of Mancunian amateur botanists,〔 and of a short-lived〔Cash (2011), p. 73.〕 botanical society for working men in Whitefield. Horsefield attended meetings of the former group in 1808, which was referred to as the "Manchester Society of Botanists"〔 or the "Botanist Society". Anne Secord, a historian of 19th century popular science, quotes an attendee of the society, Thomas Heywood, who describes it as being "without any regular place of meeting, without funds, without books and without rules; a sort of members, but no body, having only one object in common – their love of plants".〔Secord (1994), pp. 275, 277.〕 The Whitefield society arranged for funds to be pooled to buy books for communal use, enabling the 16-year-old Horsefield to read James Lee's 1760 work, ''An Introduction to Botany''. It provided information on Linnaean taxonomy as it applied to plants, and from it Horsefield copied details onto a piece of paper he pinned to his loom to commit them to memory while he was working. He earned the respect of other botanists for his abilities in the sphere of collection and identification of species and was the first to find the ''Entosthodon templetoni'' moss in England.〔〔Cash (2011), pp. 69–70.〕 Horsfield met his future wife Esther Eccorsley (1793/94 – 1872) at a botanical meeting in 1812. The couple were married on 20 December 1812 at St Mary's Church, Oldham.〔〔Secord (1994), p. 282.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「John Horsefield」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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