User:DavidAnstiss/William A. Mudd

William A. Mudd was an British lichenologist, gardener and botanist. He is primarily known for his work on

Biography
his father, Christopher Mudd, was 26 and his mother, Mary Purvess, was 32.

Born in 1829 at Clifton Lodge near Bedale, 2 miles SW of Thornton Watless, where his father was a steward. He started as a gardener to Joseph Pease of Southend, Darlington (he worked under the instruction of Mr Pope) and then was responsible for the garden of Mr T. Richardson from the village of Great Ayton. At Great Ayton, he came under the influence of George Dixon, who worked to introduce natural history in Quaker Schools. Mudd later became Curator of the Cambridge Botanic Garden (1864-1879). Charles Caudale Babington, (Professor of Botany at Cambridge, 1808–1895), recorded a "first walk into the country with Mr Mudd" on 13 April 1865. Died in Cambridge 17th April 1879.

They had children (5) Leonard Mudd Male 1850–Deceased

Christopher Mudd Male 1852–1920

Mercer Mudd Female 1854–Deceased

Joseph Mudd Male 1857–Deceased

William Mudd Male 1860–Deceased

William Mudd was born in 1829 at Clifton Lodge (above) near Bedale, where his father was a steward. When he was aged 20, he married Jane Preston, a servant from Durham. They had four sons and one daughter. Their first son was born in Darlington, their other children were born in Great Ayton. William trained as a gardener at Joseph Pease’s house at South End in Darlington. He was then appointed head gardener for John Pease at Cleveland Lodge in Great Ayton. Cleveland Lodge was originally built by Thomas Richardson in 1843 (A Quaker from Darlington, he had come to live in Great Ayton on his retirement in 1830) and was the lodge was later inherited by John Pease in 1853.

The Quaker School in Great Ayton opened in 1841 to educate the children of Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) who had “married out” by marrying a non-Quaker. George Dixon was the first superintendent of the Quaker School. He started a botanical class in the village for local residents. William Mudd joined the class and took a particular interest in the study of lichens. In his history of the Ayton School, published in 1891, George Dixon wrote of William Mudd “By a student’s microscope, he discovered that the spores of different species varied, and classified them accordingly.”

William Mudd was a keen naturalist and went on field trips to collect specimens. One of these was in Weardale, where it was said of him that “all day long (Mudd) was busy chipping off fragments of lichen-covered rock, which were duly deposited in bags slung round his person; when the other gentlemen retired for the night, they left Mr. Mudd still chipping and dressing his specimens, and in the morning as soon as they awoke, they heard the chip of Mr. Mudd’s hammer already at work”

By the end of this field trip, William had collected many specimens. “After breakfast, they walked over Swinhope Fell and caught the morning coach at Westgate for Frosterley, which was then the terminus of the line; on arriving at the station, Mr. Mudd’s bags were overhauled by one of the porters, who said Mr. Mudd would have to pay for ‘excess luggage’; the party protested against this, and said it was impossible that the bags could be so heavy, as Mr. Mudd had carried them from High Force over Swinhope to Westgate however, the load was placed on the scales, and it weighed over eight stones.” Excerpts from Walks in Weardale, W H Smith, 1885

William Mudd became an acknowledged expert on British lichens at home and abroad. His first published paper, in the Phytologist No 5, 1854, was An Account of the lichens of Cleveland, with their localities. In 1861 he published Herbarium Lichenum britannicorum, the first comprehensive manual of British lichen flora, with 130 illustrations drawn by William himself. This was followed in 1865 by A Monograph of British Cladoniae, which was illustrated with dried specimens of eighty species and varieties. Professor Mark Seaward, University of Bradford, says that “As a result of Mudd’s labours, the number of lichen species known from Yorkshire increased from about 300 in 1850 to more than 480 in 1862”.

William and Jane lived in High Green near Sheffield, Yorkshire in 1861.

1864-79 William Mudd

curator of the Cambridge Botanic Garden, Albert George Dew-Smith (1848 –1903) knew him, while he was an undergraduate at Trinity College, Cambridge.

His horticultural training was in private gardens in the north of England. Self-educated in Botany late in life, he became an authority on the local flora and acquired a keen and permanent interest in lichens.

In 1864, when he was 35, William was appointed curator of the Cambridge Botanic Garden and the family moved to Cambridge. With his rural ways and lack of formal education, William found life in Cambridge very difficult. Some of his fellows did not think too highly of him … “An illiterate Scotchman who smoked very strong tobacco and smelt strongly of whisky” Alfred Maudsley (1850-1931) archaeologist from Harrow School and Trinity Hall, Cambridge “A tall man, well-built and bony, but thin; his complexion was dark, his hair long and black. He was of a nervous, active temperament, with strong religious susceptibilities, and, as all such natures are, subject to melancholy and depression.”

In 1876, the Garden (while under Mudd's curatorship only got 3 donations of plants and seeds while under Richard Irwin Lynch (1850–1924)'s care, in 1886 the Garden received 1319 plants and 1047 seed packets, donated from 24 Botanical Gardens, 56 individuals and 7 nurserymen.

William’s life ended in sadness. In addition to his difficulties in fitting-in at Cambridge, his eyesight was failing. The Secretary of the Pharmaceutical Society visited William Mudd at Cambridge and said “I wrote you some time since, but received no reply.” William answered “Whenever I get a letter on lichens I put it on the fire, because the doctor told me that if I continued to use the microscope I should lose my eyesight.” William Mudd died at his home, after a short illness, in April 1879, just a few days before his 50th birthday the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography and Professor Mark Seaward

He was an Associate of the Botanical Society of Edinburgh. He was an Associate of the Linnean Society of London (ALS).

Books
He was the published author of;
 * Arthopyrenia nitescens now Naetrocymbe nitescens, Naetrocymbaceae
 * Stictographa

Collections
There are collections of William Mudd’s material within;
 * The British Museum (Natural History) in London
 * The Hancock Museum in Newcastle
 * The Falconer Museum at Forres in Scotland

Publications

 * Mudd, W. 1861, A manual of British lichens, description of all the species and varieties, five plates, with figures of the spores of one hundred and thirty species, illustrative of the genera. - Darlington. 1-309 pp.
 * Mudd, W. 1865, A monograph of the British Cladoniae illustrated with dried specimens of eighty species and varieties. - Cambridge. 1-36 pp.