Abstract
THE eminently successful life of Thomas Meehan, distinguished as a gardener, a botanist and a citizen, closed on November 19. Mr. Meehan was born in London in March 1826, and received what little schooling he had in the Isle of Wight, where his family had settled. Leaving school at an early age, and displaying a marked aptitude for gardening, he was employed under his father in the gardens of Colonel Francis Vernon Harcourt, at St. Clare, near Ryde. When only fourteen he succeeded in raising the first hybrid Fuchsia, St. Clare, and in appreciation of a paper which he published on Rubus was elected, when only nineteen, a member of the Wernerian Society. After holding various gardening appointments he entered the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, in 1846, on the recommendations of Dr. Bromfield and Prof. C. C. Babington. At Kew, where he stayed a little more than two years, he made the acquaintance of Berthold Seemann, with whom he was a candidate for the appointment of botanist to the Herald expedition. On leaving Kew he became head-gardener to the Earl of Shrewsbury at Alton Towers, a post which, owing to his religious opinions, he was soon obliged to relinquish. Though offered tempting inducements to remain in his native country, Meehan determined to make America his home, and reached Philadelphia in March 1848.
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SKAN, S. Thomas Meehan . Nature 65, 132 (1901). https://doi.org/10.1038/065132a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/065132a0