Bennett, Alfred William

Alfred William Bennett was the son of Quakers : William Bennett (1804–1873) ^[1] , a successful tea dealer, amateur botanist, emu ostrich breeder, and Elizabeth (Trusted) Bennett (1798–1891), author of The Religious Society of Friends . William Bennett corresponded with the biologist Charles Darwin , although he himself did not accept his theory of evolutionary biology ^[2] . Alfred Bennett, a proponent of evolution unlike his father, later began his own correspondence with Darwin.

William Bennett showed great interest in the education of his children who studied at home. Influenced by the theory of elementary nature-friendly education and training of the humanist educator Johann Pestalozzi , William Bennett goes to Switzerland in the winter of 1841-1842 so that his children can study at the Pestalozzi school in Appenzell ^[3] . It was during this trip that Alfred Bennett learned the German language, whose knowledge will help him in future studies of the Alpine flora.

William Bennett created an environment for his children to foster their study of the natural sciences. In 1851-1854, he took Alfred and his brother Edward Trusted Bennett (1831-1908) on several hiking trips around Wales and the west of England, where the boys studied the British flora and took notes on their observation; father also introduced them to entomologists and family friends Edward Newman , Henry Doubleday and Edward Doubleday ^[4] .

Alfred Bennett studied at University College London , where he received a bachelor's degree with honors in chemistry and botany in 1853, a master's degree in biology in 1855, and a bachelor of science in biology in 1868 ^[5] . In 1858, he married Catherine Richardson (1835–1892) and went into the publishing business ^{[6] [7]} in London on Ul. Bishopsgate 5 (the business was owned by Charles Gilpin, and later William and Frederick G. Kesham) ^{[8] [9]} . Over the next 10 years, he was the publisher ^[10] , including the editor and publisher of The Friend’s weekly, Friends .

He was one of the first publishers to use photographic illustrations; He was the first assistant to the editor of the journal Nature ^[11] , published since 1869. In addition, he continued to be editor of the Journal of the Royal Microscopical Society , the main publication of the Royal Microscopic Society, where he was not only a full member, but also three terms as vice president.

In the years 1871-1873. Bennett wrote a series of works on pollination of plants that attracted the attention of Charles Darwin, who noted his efforts. In particular, Bennett clarified many processes in flower pollination and established the basic terminology for his description, established how the structure of a flower can contribute to cross pollination . Bennett at this time described the source , and prepared an inventory of this family for the publication of the 1874 Flora Brasiliensis and the work of D. D. Hooker of the 1872 Flora of British India . A hiking trip in Switzerland in 1875 restored Bennett's interest in the nature of the Swiss Alps after finding 200 species of flowering plants that he had not seen here before. This led to his translation (Alpine plants painted from nature) of the work of Joseph Zebot Alpenpflanzen nach der Natur gemalt as Alpine Plants (1879–1884) ^[12] and Tourists' Guide to the Flora of the Austrian Alps by Austrian scientist Karl Wilhelm von Dall Torre ( 1882, 1886), as well as Alfred Bennett published his own work Flora of the Alps (1897). Then, for two decades, he worked as a nerd with descriptions of cryptogam (cryptogamics) , especially freshwater algae. In 1889, co-authored with George Robert Milne Murray published a handbook on the botany of secretive. In an obituary published in the Journal of the Royal Microscopical Society, this work is called his most valuable original work ^[4] . Bennett has been a lecturer in botany for many years at St Thomas' Hospital in London and at Bedford College ^{[4] [13]} .

After publishing, in 1868, he and his wife opened their home in Park Village East, Regent's Park , for a number of women who came to London to study. Since then, Alfred Bennett has shown great interest in the issue of female education in London. ^[14] He made a significant contribution to solving this problem. ^[15] On May 15, 1878, the Council of the University of London received an appeal, signed by 1960 women, asking the university about the possibility of obtaining degrees by women. Bennett was one of the rapporteurs referred to in The Times in a debate on the discussion of this subject. ^[16] A decade after this event, the University of London began to award degrees to women ^[15] .

Alfred William Bennett suddenly died of a heart attack in the Oxford Circus area while riding an omnibus to his home in Park Village East, Regent's Park . Bennett is a lifelong Quaker, buried in the Quaker cemetery in Isleworth with his wife Katherine. The couple was childless. ^[17]

• Review of the Genus Hydrolea (1870)
• On the Medicinal Products of the Indian Simarubeae and Burseraceae (1875)
• Review of the British Species and Subspecies of Polygala (1877)
• On the Structure and the Affinities of Characeae (1878)
• Conspectus Polygalarum Europaearum (1878)
• Polygalae americanae novae vel parum cognitae (1878)
• Reproduction of the Zygnemaceae (1884)
• Freshwater Algae (1887)
• A Handbook of Cryptogamic Botany (1889)
• The Flora of the Alps (1897)

• Alfred William Bennett (1902). Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London: One Hundred and Fourteenth Session , pp. 26-27. Retrieved 15 September 2012 from Biodiversity Heritage Library .
• Baker, JG (1902). “Obituary: AW Bennett.” Journal of the Royal Microscopical Society for the Year 1902 , pp. 155–157. Retrieved 15 September 2012 from Biodiversity Heritage Library .
• Cleevely, RJ (2004). “Bennett, Alfred William.” Dictionary of Nineteenth-Century British Scientists , Volume 1: pp. 181–182. Bristol, England: Thoemmes Continuum.
• Cleevely, RJ (2004). “Bennett, Alfred William (1833-1902).” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography . Oxford: Oxford University Press. Online edition retrieved 15 September 2012 through a subscription account.
• Katharine Bennett (1893). Annual Monitor , No. 51: p. 22. Retrieved 17 September 2012 from Internet Archive .
• SAS (1902). "AW Bennett." Nature , 65 : p. 321. Retrieved 14 September 2012 from Nature.com.
• Stafleu, Frans A. and Erik A. Mennega (1993). “Bennett, Alfred William.” Taxonomic Literature: Supplement II , pp. 70–72. Königstein: Koelz Scientific Books. Retrieved September 15, 2012 from Taxonomic Literature II Online .

• Alfred William Bennett at the Biodiversity Heritage Library .
• Quaker Obituary A.W. Bennett // Annual Monitor for 1903.