Giant People:
William Withering
Doctor William Withering is best-known for his pioneering work in the field of heart disease but the eighteenth century Shropshire medic also has a literary claim to fame. In 1776 he published a ground-breaking guide to British plantlife, bringing the subject to a wider audience and earning international acclaim in the process.
The Wellington Connection
Withering was born in Wellington on 17th March 1741, the son of Edmund and Sarah Withering. His father was a well-known local apothecary and surgeon, while his maternal grandfather George Hector is said to have delivered Samuel Johnson — author of one of one of the most influential dictionaries in the English language. Aside from a love of ‘rural sport’, little is known of Withering’s childhood but he was privately educated by Reverend Henry Wood of High Ercall. According to his biographer (his son William junior),
“His youth exhibited little of that precocity of intellect, at once so flattering and so alarmingly indicative of a short, though brilliant career.”
However, he did receive a classical education tailored towards his father’s desire that he, too, should study medicine, and was also known to have a love of poetry — his favourite work being James Thomson’s four-part series The Seasons.
The Wellington Connection
Withering was born in Wellington on 17th March 1741, the son of Edmund and Sarah Withering. His father was a well-known local apothecary and surgeon, while his maternal grandfather George Hector is said to have delivered Samuel Johnson — author of one of one of the most influential dictionaries in the English language. Aside from a love of ‘rural sport’, little is known of Withering’s childhood but he was privately educated by Reverend Henry Wood of High Ercall. According to his biographer (his son William junior),
“His youth exhibited little of that precocity of intellect, at once so flattering and so alarmingly indicative of a short, though brilliant career.”
However, he did receive a classical education tailored towards his father’s desire that he, too, should study medicine, and was also known to have a love of poetry — his favourite work being James Thomson’s four-part series The Seasons.
Why Is It Important
A Botanical Arrangement of all the Vegetables Naturally Growing in Great Britain (better known, mercifully, as The Botany!) was published in two volumes in May 1776 and became an instant hit. It represented the first serious attempt to organise British plantlife into a modern system of classification and earned its author the nickname of the ‘English Linnaeus.’
Withering used the book to dispel many myths associated with folklore and superstition, including the origins of the Fairy-ring mushroom, an organism with many literary associations. In Shakespeare’s The Tempest, for instance, Prospero exclaimed that the mysterious circles were the result of “demi-puppets that by moonshine do the green sour ringlets make.” Withering, however, was able to demonstrate (by digging into an example) they were in fact the roots of the fungus Marasmius oreades.
Why Is It Important
A Botanical Arrangement of all the Vegetables Naturally Growing in Great Britain (better known, mercifully, as The Botany!) was published in two volumes in May 1776 and became an instant hit. It represented the first serious attempt to organise British plantlife into a modern system of classification and earned its author the nickname of the ‘English Linnaeus.’
Withering used the book to dispel many myths associated with folklore and superstition, including the origins of the Fairy-ring mushroom, an organism with many literary associations. In Shakespeare’s The Tempest, for instance, Prospero exclaimed that the mysterious circles were the result of “demi-puppets that by moonshine do the green sour ringlets make.” Withering, however, was able to demonstrate (by digging into an example) they were in fact the roots of the fungus Marasmius oreades.
Giant Steps
The budding doctor left Wellington to study medicine at Edinburgh University in 1762 but returned home to his parents during the holidays, allegedly making the trip home each summer by horseback! Although a sketch of his birthplace exists, the location of the building it depicts is unknown. Consequently, the only local references to be found nowadays are in the sign of a New Street pub, emblazoned on town centre litterbins — in a foxglove emblem (the medicinal properties of which formed the basis of Withering’s research on heart disease) — and in the form of a blue plaque hanging in Market Square.
Giant Steps
The budding doctor left Wellington to study medicine at Edinburgh University in 1762 but returned home to his parents during the holidays, allegedly making the trip home each summer by horseback! Although a sketch of his birthplace exists, the location of the building it depicts is unknown. Consequently, the only local references to be found nowadays are in the sign of a New Street pub, emblazoned on town centre litterbins — in a foxglove emblem (the medicinal properties of which formed the basis of Withering’s research on heart disease) — and in the form of a blue plaque hanging in Market Square.