Joseph Woods (24 August 1776 – 9 January 1864) was an English Quaker architect, botanist and geologist born in the village of Stoke Newington, a few miles north of the

City of London The City of London is a city, ceremonial county and local government district that contains the historic centre and constitutes, alongside Canary Wharf, the primary central business district (CBD) of London. It constituted most of London f ...

. A Member of the Society of Antiquaries, and an Honorary Member of the Society of British Architects, he was also elected a

Fellow of the Linnean Society The Linnean Society of London is a learned society dedicated to the study and dissemination of information concerning natural history, evolution, and taxonomy. It possesses several important biological specimen, manuscript and literature colle ...

and a

Fellow of the Geological Society The Geological Society of London, known commonly as the Geological Society, is a learned society based in the United Kingdom. It is the oldest national geological society in the world and the largest in Europe with more than 12,000 Fellows. Fe ...

in recognition of his original research.

Family background

His mother was Mary (or Margaret) Hoare, daughter of Samuel Hoare (1716-1796), a London merchant from an Irish background, and Grizell Gurnell (1722? - 1802), of Ealing. The Hoares lived on what is now Stoke Newington Church Street, opposite Clissold Park. in 1824; and Samuel Jr, a banker and abolitionist. His father, Joseph Woods the elder, was an

abolitionist Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the movement to end slavery. In Western Europe and the Americas, abolitionism was a historic movement that sought to end the Atlantic slave trade and liberate the enslaved people. The British ...

. He and

Samuel Hoare Jr Samuel Hoare Jr (9 August 1751 – 14 July 1825) was a wealthy British Quaker banker and abolitionist born in Stoke Newington, then to the north of London in the county of Middlesex. His London seat was Heath House on Hampstead Heath. He was one ...

were two of the four Quaker founders of the London Abolition Committee, the predecessor body to the

Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade The Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade, also known as the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, and sometimes referred to as the Abolition Society or Anti-Slavery Society, was a British abolitionist group formed on ...

Education

Joseph Woods' early education was at home, where his parents taught him Latin, Greek, Modern Greek, Hebrew, Italian and French. Later (at about age 16) he studied architecture under

Daniel Asher Alexander Daniel Asher Alexander (6 May 1768 – 2 March 1846) was an English architect and engineer. Life Daniel Asher Alexander was born in Southwark, London and educated at St Paul's School, London. He was admitted to the Royal Academy Schools i ...

Architect

Woods was responsible around 1790 for the design and building of Clissold House in Stoke Newington, for his uncle Jonathan Hoare. In 1806 he founded the

London Architectural Society London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a major se ...

and became its first President. In 1816, immediately after the end of the

Napoleonic Wars The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) were a series of major global conflicts pitting the French Empire and its allies, led by Napoleon I, against a fluctuating array of European states formed into various coalitions. It produced a period of Fren ...

, he was able to travel throughout the Continent and visited France, Switzerland, and Italy, studying their architecture and botany. Drawing on part of this experience, his book ''Letters of an Architect'' was published in 1828.

Botany

After about 1835 Joseph Wood's interest in architecture gave way to his other passion, botany. Many years earlier, he had completed a study of the genus ''Rosa'', which had been published in the ''Transactions of the

Linnean Society The Linnean Society of London is a learned society dedicated to the study and dissemination of information concerning natural history, evolution, and taxonomy. It possesses several important biological specimen, manuscript and literature colle ...

'' in 1818 under the title ''Synopsis of the British Species of Rosa'' and established Woods’ reputation as a systematic botanist. leaving architecture to one side, he was now able to devote himself more fully to botany and his botanical notes, made during his Continental and British travels, were published in the ''Companion to the Botanical Magazine'' in 1835 and in 1836, and in successive volumes of ''

The Phytologist ''The Phytologist'' was a British botanical journal, appearing first as ''Phytologist: a popular botanical miscellany''. It was founded in 1841 as a monthly, edited by George Luxford. Luxford died in 1854, and the title was taken over by Alexa ...

'' beginning in 1843. In 1850 he published ''The Tourist’s Flora: a descriptive catalogue of the flowering plants and ferns of the British Islands, France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, and the Italian islands'', drawing further on his many field excursions in Europe and the British Isles. A genus of fern, ''

Woodsia ''Woodsia'' is a genus of ferns in the order Polypodiales. In the Pteridophyte Phylogeny Group classification of 2016 (PPG I), it is the only genus in the family Woodsiaceae, placed in the suborder Aspleniineae. The family can also be trea ...

'', is named in his honour.

Extended family

Joseph Woods's uncles and aunts, on his mother's side, included: * Jonathan Hoare, merchant of Throgmorton Street, partner in Gurnell, Hoare & Co., who built Clissold House and then ran into financial difficulties * Grizell Hoare, who as a wealthy 72-year-old widow of Wilson Birkbeck married

William Allen William Allen may refer to: Politicians United States *William Allen (congressman) (1827–1881), United States Representative from Ohio *William Allen (governor) (1803–1879), U.S. Representative, Senator, and 31st Governor of Ohio *William ...

, pharmacist, philanthropist and abolitionist, with whom she founded

Newington Academy for Girls The Newington Academy for Girls, also known as Newington College for Girls, was a Quaker school established in 1824 in Stoke Newington, then north of London. In a time when girls' educational opportunities were limited, it offered a wide range ...

in 1824; and *

, banker and abolitionist.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Woods, Joseph 1776 births 1864 deaths Fellows of the Linnean Society of London English Quakers English botanical writers English botanists Fellows of the Geological Society of London 19th-century English architects English geologists English antiquarians People from Stoke Newington Architects from London