Henry Thomas Maire Witham

FRSE Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE) is an award granted to individuals that the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland's national academy of science and Literature, letters, judged to be "eminently distinguished in their subject". ...

FGS (9 June 1779–1844) was a British landowner remembered as an amateur palaeontologist and mineralogist. He was an early researcher into the internal structure of

fossil plant Paleobotany or palaeobotany, also known as paleophytology, is the branch of botany dealing with the recovery and identification of plant fossils from geological contexts, and their use for the biological reconstruction of past environments ( pal ...

Life

He was born Henry Silvertop, the son of John Silvertop of Minsteracres in

Northumberland Northumberland ( ) is a ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in North East England, on the Anglo-Scottish border, border with Scotland. It is bordered by the North Sea to the east, Tyne and Wear and County Durham to the south, Cumb ...

. His mother was Catherine Lawson of Brough. He was a compulsive gambler and ran up debts of £105,000 (a huge sum in the 1820s) and was forced to sell off much of his property to settle his debts. From 1826 to 1832, he lived in

Edinburgh Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. The city is located in southeast Scotland and is bounded to the north by the Firth of Forth and to the south by the Pentland Hills. Edinburgh ...

at 14 Great King Street. During his time in Edinburgh (in 1827), he was elected a Fellow of the

Royal Society of Edinburgh The Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) is Scotland's national academy of science and letters. It is a registered charity that operates on a wholly independent and non-partisan basis and provides public benefit throughout Scotland. It was establis ...

, his proposer being Thomas Allan. Though having no botanical training, he applied William Nicol's method of examining fossils and rocks under the microscope by slicing them into

thin section In optical mineralogy and petrography, a thin section (or petrographic thin section) is a thin slice of a rock or mineral sample, prepared in a laboratory, for use with a polarizing petrographic microscope, electron microscope and electron ...

s. Nicol's first published account of this process is contained in Witham's 1831 publication, ''Observations of Fossil Vegetables''. Witham's findings were also published in his 1833 book ''The Internal Structure of Fossil Vegetables found in the Carboniferous and Oolitic deposits of

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-west coast of continental Europe, consisting of the countries England, Scotland, and Wales. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the List of European ...

'', illustrated by

William MacGillivray William MacGillivray FRSE (25 January 1796 – 4 September 1852) was a Scottish naturalist and ornithologist. Life and work MacGillivray was born in Old Aberdeen and brought up on Harris. He returned to Aberdeen where he studied Medicine a ...

. He worked strenuously for the

Mechanics Institute Mechanics' institutes, also known as mechanics' institutions, sometimes simply known as institutes, and also called schools of arts (especially in the Australian colonies), were educational establishments originally formed to provide adult ed ...

, which provided education for the working classes and the relief of the sick poor. He was a Fellow of the

Geological Society of London 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 ...

and of the

Wernerian Natural History Society The Wernerian Natural History Society (12 January 1808 – 16 April 1858), commonly abbreviated as the Wernerian Society, was a learned society interested in the broad field of natural history, and saw papers presented on various topics such as m ...

of Edinburgh. He died at his home at

Lartington Hall Lartington Hall is a 17th-century country house, at Lartington, Teesdale, County Durham, England. It is a Grade II* listed building. Architecture The earliest part of the house, built for the Appleby family, is the three-storey four-bayed ce ...

on 28 November 1844.

Family

In 1800, he married Eliza Witham, daughter of Thomas Witham,

Esq. Esquire (, ; abbreviated Esq.) is usually a courtesy title. In the United Kingdom, ''esquire'' historically was a title of respect accorded to men of higher social rank, particularly members of the landed gentry above the rank of gentleman an ...

, of Headlam, in

County Durham County Durham, officially simply Durham, is a ceremonial county in North East England.UK General Acts 1997 c. 23Lieutenancies Act 1997 Schedule 1(3). From legislation.gov.uk, retrieved 6 April 2022. The county borders Northumberland and Tyne an ...

, and niece and heiress of William Witham, esq., of Cliffe, in

Richmondshire {{Infobox settlement , name = Richmondshire District , type = Non-metropolitan district , image_skyline = , imagesize = , image_caption = , image_blank_emblem= Richmondshire arms.png , blank_em ...

North Yorkshire North Yorkshire is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in Northern England.The Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority areas of City of York, York and North Yorkshire (district), North Yorkshire are in Yorkshire and t ...

, and thus inherited the Witham name and

coat of arms A coat of arms is a heraldry, heraldic communication design, visual design on an escutcheon (heraldry), escutcheon (i.e., shield), surcoat, or tabard (the last two being outer garments), originating in Europe. The coat of arms on an escutcheon f ...

. Their son Henry John Silvertop (b.1802) kept his father's original surname. The family were all Roman Catholic.

Publications

*''The Internal Structure of Fossil Vegetables'' (1833)

Botanical reference

References

External links