Researching William Curtis

Curtis began as an apothecary, before turning his attention to botany and other natural history. The publications he prepared reached a wider audience than early works on the subject had intended. At the age of 25 he produced Instructions for collecting and preserving insects; particularly moths and butterflies.

Curtis was demonstrator of plants and Praefectus Horti at the Chelsea Physic Garden from 1771 to 1777. He established his own London Botanic Garden at Lambeth in 1779, moving to Brompton in 1789. He published Flora Londinensis (6 volumes, 1777–1798), a pioneering work in that it devoted itself to urban nature. Financial success was not found, but he went on the publish The Botanical Magazine in 1787, a work that would also feature hand coloured plates by artists such as James Sowerby and Sydenham Edwards. (William Kilburn is often erroneously cited as having contributed plates to Curtis' Botanical Magazine. Though he did provide illustrations to Flora Londinensis, his association with Curtis seems to have ended by 1777, 10 years before the first publication of the Botanical Magazine)

Curtis was to gain wealth from the ventures into publishing, short sales on Londinensis were offset by over 3,000 copies of the magazine. Curtis said they had each brought 'pudding or praise'.

The genus Curtisia is named in his honour. His publication was continued as the esteemed botanical publication, Curtis's Botanical Magazine. The noted natural history illustrators, James Sowerby and Sydenham Edwards both found a start with the eminent magazine.

He was buried in the churchyard at St. Mary's Church, Battersea where he is commemorated in a stained glass window, as many of his samples were collected from the churchyard there. His headstone, now lost, had the epitaph

"While living herbs shall spring profusely wild,

or gardens cherish all that's blithe and gay,

So long thy works shall please, dear Nature's child,

So long thy mem'ry suffer no decay".

This botanist is denoted by the author abbreviation Curtis when citing a botanical name.

William Frederick Curtis (29 May 1881 – 23 December 1962) was an English cricketer. Curtis was a right-handed batsman. He was born at Leicester, Leicestershire.

Curtis made his first-class debut for Leicestershire against Sussex in the 1911 County Championship at Aylestone Road, Leicester. He next appeared in first-class cricket for the county in 1920, making four appearances in that seasons County Championship, the last of which came against Somerset. In his five matches, he scored a total of 69 runs at an average of 8.62, with a high score of 38.

He died at the city of his birth on 23 December 1962.