Lady Anne Monson (née Vane; 25 June 172618 February 1776), also known as Lady Anne Hope-Vere, was an English botanist and collector of plants and insects. The plant genus '' Monsonia'' was named after her by

Carolus Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné,#Blunt, Blunt (2004), p. 171. was a Swedish biologist and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the modern system of naming o ...

Life

She was the daughter of Henry Vane, 1st Earl of Darlington, and his wife, Lady Grace Fitzroy; she was a great-grandchild of Charles II. Her aunt, also Anne Vane, was a royal mistress.Matthew Kilburn, ‘Vane, Anne (d. 1736)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 200
accessed 19 Feb 2017
/ref> In 1746, she married Charles Hope-Vere of Craigiehall and had two sons before the marriage was dissolved by Act of Parliament in 1757, due to the birth of an illegitimate child. No details of this child's father are known. Later in 1757, she married Colonel George Monson of Lincolnshire. Since her new husband's career was with the Indian military, she spent most of her time in

Calcutta Kolkata, also known as Calcutta (List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, its official name until 2001), is the capital and largest city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal. It lies on the eastern ba ...

, where she became prominent in Anglo-Indian society. She died in Calcutta on 18 February 1776.

Botany

Lady Anne's interest in natural history predated her arrival in India. In 1760, she was already well known to the botanical community as a "remarkable lady botanist". It was claimed by her contemporary J. E. Smith that it was Lady Anne who assisted James Lee in translating

Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné,#Blunt, Blunt (2004), p. 171. was a Swedish biologist and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the modern system of naming o ...

Philosophia Botanica ''Philosophia Botanica'' ("Botanical Philosophy", ed. 1, Stockholm & Amsterdam, 1751.) was published by the Swedish naturalist and physician Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778) who greatly influenced the development of botanical Taxonomy (biology), taxono ...

, the first work to explain the Linnaean classification to English readers. Lee published the book under his own name in 1760, and acknowledged Lady Anne anonymously in the preface. A few years later Lady Anne was introduced to the Danish entomologist

Johan Christian Fabricius Johann Christian Fabricius (7 January 1745 – 3 March 1808) was a Danish zoologist, specialising in "Insecta", which at that time included all arthropods: insects, arachnids, crustaceans and others. He was a student of Carl Linnaeus, and is co ...

, one of Linnaeus's pupils. Later, Lady Anne is mentioned by James Lee in her letters to Linnaeus. In 1774, on the way out to Calcutta, Lady Anne visited the

Cape of Good Hope The Cape of Good Hope ( ) is a rocky headland on the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic coast of the Cape Peninsula in South Africa. A List of common misconceptions#Geography, common misconception is that the Cape of Good Hope is the southern tip of Afri ...

where she met another of Linnaeus's pupils,

Carl Peter Thunberg Carl Peter Thunberg, also known as Karl Peter von Thunberg, Carl Pehr Thunberg, or Carl Per Thunberg (11 November 1743 – 8 August 1828), was a Sweden, Swedish Natural history, naturalist and an Apostles of Linnaeus, "apostle" of Carl Linnaeus ...

, a seasoned collector of South African plants. Thunberg accompanied her on several expeditions around

Cape Town Cape Town is the legislature, legislative capital city, capital of South Africa. It is the country's oldest city and the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. Cape Town is the country's List of municipalities in South Africa, second-largest ...

, and she presented him with a ring in remembrance. Specimens of Monsonia, a flowering shrub, were sent to Kew Gardens in 1774.

Legacy

One of the South African plants collected by Lady Anne was named '' Monsonia'' by Linnaeus.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Monson, Anne 1726 births 1776 deaths English women scientists People from Darlington

Anne Anne, alternatively spelled Ann, is a form of the Latin female name Anna (name), Anna. This in turn is a representation of the Hebrew Hannah (given name), Hannah, which means 'favour' or 'grace'. Related names include Annie (given name), Annie a ...

Daughters of British earls 18th-century English women scientists 18th-century British botanists Scientists from Kolkata British women botanists Scientists from British India People from the Bengal Presidency