William Sherard was an English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 botanist. Next to John Ray, he was considered to be one of the outstanding English botanists of his day.

Life

He is still a little known figure of that era coming as he did from humble origins. However, he worked hard and his education allowed him to rise in the societal ranks.

Sherard was born in Bushby, Leicestershire

Leicestershire

Leicestershire is a landlocked county in the English Midlands. It takes its name from the heavily populated City of Leicester, traditionally its administrative centre, although the City of Leicester unitary authority is today administered separately from the rest of Leicestershire...

 and studied at St John's College, Oxford

St John's College, Oxford

__FORCETOC__St John's College is a constituent college of the University of Oxford, one of the larger Oxford colleges with approximately 390 undergraduates, 200 postgraduates and over 100 academic staff. It was founded by Sir Thomas White, a merchant, in 1555, whose heart is buried in the chapel of...

 from 1677 to 1683. He studied botany from 1686 to 1688 in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 under Joseph Pitton de Tournefort

Joseph Pitton de Tournefort

Joseph Pitton de Tournefort was a French botanist, notable as the first to make a clear definition of the concept of genus for plants.- Biography :...

 and was a friend and pupil of Paul Hermann

Paul Hermann

Paul Hermann was a German born physician and botanist who for 15 years was director of the Hortus Botanicus Leiden....

 in Leyden from 1688 to 1689 who also studied with Tournefort at this time. In 1690 he was in Ireland

Ireland

Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

 as tutor to the family of Sir Arthur Rawdon at Moira, County Down.

Sherard was British Consul at Smyrna

Smyrna

Smyrna was an ancient city located at a central and strategic point on the Aegean coast of Anatolia. Thanks to its advantageous port conditions, its ease of defence and its good inland connections, Smyrna rose to prominence. The ancient city is located at two sites within modern İzmir, Turkey...

 from 1703 to 1716, during which time he accumulated a fortune. When he returned to England he became a patron of other naturalists, including Johann Jacob Dillenius

Johann Jacob Dillenius

Johann Jacob Dillen Dillenius was a German botanist.Dillen was born at Darmstadt and was educated at the University of Giessen, where he wrote several botanical papers for the Ephemerides naturae curiosorum, and printed, in 1719, his Catalogus plantarum sponte circa Gissam nascentium, illustrated...

, Pietro Antonio Micheli, Paolo Boccone

Paolo Boccone

Paolo Silvio Boccone was an Italian botanist from Sicily, whose interest in plants had been sparked at a young age...

 and Mark Catesby

Mark Catesby

Mark Catesby was an English naturalist. Between 1731 and 1743 Catesby published his Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands, the first published account of the flora and fauna of North America...

. He was also instrumental in the publication of Sebastien Vaillant

Sébastien Vaillant

Sébastien Vaillant was a French botanist.Vaillant was born at Vigny, Val d'Oise. He studied medicine at Pontoise, and then moved to Paris to practice as a surgeon, where he studied botany at the Jardin des Plantes under Joseph Pitton de Tournefort.Vaillant was appointed to the staff of the Jardin...

's Botanicon parisiense (1727) and Hermann's Musaeum zeylanica. With his money, he endowed the Chair of Botany

Botany

Botany, plant science, or plant biology is a branch of biology that involves the scientific study of plant life. Traditionally, botany also included the study of fungi, algae and viruses...

 at Oxford University with the stipulation that it go to Dillenius.

Works

Sherard helped shape the face of taxonomy which at the time was still in flux. His work with Ray, Tournefort, Hermann and Dillenius helped considerably define the work of Linnaeus, the father of modern taxonomy.

He contributed to John Ray

John Ray

John Ray was an English naturalist, sometimes referred to as the father of English natural history. Until 1670, he wrote his name as John Wray. From then on, he used 'Ray', after "having ascertained that such had been the practice of his family before him".He published important works on botany,...

's Stirpium published in 1694. He co-edited Paul Hermann

Paul Hermann

Paul Hermann was a German born physician and botanist who for 15 years was director of the Hortus Botanicus Leiden....

's Paradisus Batavus (1698) after Hermann's death in 1695. In about 1700 he embarked on a continuation of Caspar Bauhin's Pinax which he never finished.

William Sherard was the brother of James Sherard

James Sherard

James Sherard was an English apothecary, botanist, and amateur musician. He was born in Bushby, Leicestershire to George and Mary Sherwood; it is unknown why his surname was changed. His older brother, William, also became a noted botanist...

. Dillenius's famous Hortus Elthamensis, which was often cited by Linnaeus

Carolus Linnaeus

Carl Linnaeus , also known after his ennoblement as , was a Swedish botanist, physician, and zoologist, who laid the foundations for the modern scheme of binomial nomenclature. He is known as the father of modern taxonomy, and is also considered one of the fathers of modern ecology...

was a description of the rare plants that James Sherard grew in his garden in Eltham in Kent (now within the confines of Greater London). As stated on the title page and in the preface of Dillenius's work, William Sherard did a great deal of the taxonomic part of the work.