Abstract
WILLIAM WILSON SAUNDERS, F.R.S., F.L.S., &c., who, as we stated last week, died on September 13, was born June 4, 1809, the son of the Rev. James Saunders, Vicar of Kirtlington. He was educated at Addiscombe, and went to India as an engineer officer in the Hon. East India Company's service. While there he published his first scientific paper, in Gleanings in Science “On Hydraulic Cements,” in 1831, and also-devoted a great part of his leisure to the study of plants and insects, and made collections, which he brought back with him in 1832. Having left the service, “he settled at Wandsworth, and shortly after joined his father-in-law in business at Lloyds, still continuing his natural history studies. He was one of the original members of the Entomological Society, and read his first paper, “On the Habits of some Indian Insects,” in April, 1834. This was followed by many others, mostly of a descriptive nature. He was President of the Society in 1841, 1856, and 1857, and many times served as vice-president. He was also elected a Fellow of the Linnean Society in 1833, and was vice-president from 1856 to 1874, and treasurer from 1861 to 1873. He became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1853, and was also a Fellow of the Zoological Society and Royal Horticultural Society, and on the Council of the latter he took an active part. His natural history collections gradually increased in extent from the time of his return from India, and he devoted himself principally while at Wandsworth to horticulture and entomology and to the formation of an extensive herbarium and collection of woods, with notes of the density and weight per cubic foot of each2 which latter was exhibited at the great Exhibition of 1851. The Report of the Juries for the Exhibition gives a classified catalogue of them, with remarks as to their uses, &c.
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William Wilson Saunders . Nature 20, 536–537 (1879). https://doi.org/10.1038/020536a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/020536a0