natstand logo

Henry Hewetson (1826 - 1909)


Biographical notes

Very little is known of the life of Henry Hewetson of Hull. He was the second son of John Hewetson of Newland House, Hull, a wealthy businessman. He is chiefly noted for a collection of plants which is now in LDS, having passed through the herbaria of W. A. Horrell and W. A. Sledge. This collection contains some significant East Yorkshire plants and material collected on an expedition to the Scottish Highlands with Prof. J. H. Balfour in 1847.

His eldest son, Henry Bendelack Hewetson (1850 - 1899), is much better known as a naturalist, having twice served as president of the Leeds Natural History Society.

Residence

1825 Sculcoates, Hull
1841 Census - Keldgate, Beverley
1847 Edinburgh
1853 Barton Hill, Barton-upon-Humber
1860 Keldgate, Beverley
1863 Moorland-road, Leeds
1876 Falsgrave, Scarborough
1881 Census - West Park Terrace, Falsgrave, Scarborough
1909 118 Falsgrave-road, Scarborough

Societies

Associates

Additional links

Creative Commons Licence

natstand is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Timeline

1826: Birth Henry Hewetson, son of John and Mary Hewetson, was baptised at Christ Church, Sculcoates, Hull, on 1826 July 26.
1841: Beverley Grammar School The 1841 census shows Henry and his elder brother John boarding in Beverley, East Yorkshire, with Rev. Zachariah Warren, headmaster of the Beverley Grammar School. Specimens from 1840 - 1841 in LDS show that he was an active botanist at this time.
1846: Edinburgh University Henry Hewetson was registered as a student of Arts at Edinburgh in 1846 and 1847. There is no record that he completed his course of study.
1847 August: Botanising with Prof. Balfour Balfour, J. H. 1848. Notes of a botanical excursion, with pupils, to the mountains of Braemar, Glenisla, and Clova, and to Benlawers, in August 1847. Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal, 45 April - October 1848, p 122 -128.
... A party, consisting of Messrs Murchison, Gilby, Ivory, Hewetson, Morse, Douglas, H. Balfour, and myself, met at Aberdeen on the 6th of August 1847, with a view of making an extended botanical trip.
Further details are given in Balfour's diaries (Balfour, I. B., 1902. History of the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh. Botanical excursions made by John Hutton Balfour in the years from 1846 to 1878 inclusively. Notes from the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh. July 1902.) where a detailed record of the excursion and plants collected is given. The party's visit to Glen Tilt on August 21, and their confrontation with the Duke of Atholl, attracted much attention in the press and prompted much legal activity concering rights of way in Scotland. Hewetson's specimens in LDS include several plants from this expedition.
[Link to Balfour's excursion diary, Biodiversity Heritage Library.]
link
1849 June 12: Marriage ¹Manchester Courier and Lancashire General Advertiser - 1849 June 20
MARRIAGES. On the 12th inst., at Clifton, Bristol, by the Rev. John Hewetson, Henry Hewetson, Esq., to Clementina Juliet, second surviving daughter of the late Angelo Bendelack, Esq.
1872: Leeds Newspaper reports show that Henry exhibited plants, insects, shells ane even a live lizard at meetings of the Leeds Naturalists' Field Club.

¹Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer - 1872 August 10
THE LEEDS NATURALISTS' FIELD CLUB AND SCIENTIFIC ASSOCIATION
On behalf of Mr Henry Hewetson, the secretaries exhibited the living caterpillars of the goat moth (cossus ligniperda), which he had found boring into the solid wood of an elm tree in the neighbourhood of Hull. In his accompanying letter Mr Hewetson mentioned that they are supposed to have been a dainty dish with the old Roman epicures.
1899 May 13:
Death of son
H Bendelack Hewetson
¹Leeds Times - 1899 May 20
The remains of the late Mr. H. Bendelack Hewetson, F.L.S.. M.R.C.S.. F.R.G.S., F.Z.S., of Leeds, who died on Saturday last, were laid to rest on Wednesday in Scarborough Cemetery. The funeral took place from the residence of the deceased gentleman's father, Mr. Henry Hewetson, West Park House, Falsgrave …
1909 January 2: Death ¹Sheffield Daily Telegraph - 1909 January 4
A SCARBOROUGH OCTOGENARIAN. The death took place at Scarborough, on Saturday, of Mr. Henry Hewetson, of West Park House, Scarborough. He was afflicted with an internal ailment, but was out of doors as recently as a fortnight ago. Mr Hewetson, who had reached his eighty-second year, was in politics a Liberal. He leaves a widow and three sons and three daughters.
[Link to image and transcription of his monument in Manor Road Cemetery, Scarborough.]
link

1 Transcription reproduced with kind permission of The British Newspaper Archive


Managed by Richard Middleton: last updated 2023 March 29