Nathaniel Lord Britton
| Nathaniel Lord Britton | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
January 15, 1859 Staten Island, New York |
| Died | June 25, 1934 (aged 75) Bronx, New York |
| Nationality | American |
| Fields | Botany |
Nathaniel Lord Britton (January 15, 1859 – June 25, 1934) was an American botanist and taxonomist who co-founded the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx, New York.
Britton was born in New Dorp in Staten Island, New York to Jasper Alexander Hamilton Britton and Harriet Lord Turner. His parents wanted him to study religion, but he was attracted to nature study at an early age.
He was a graduate of the Columbia University School of Mines and afterwards taught geology and botany at Columbia University. He joined the Torrey Botanical Club soon after graduation and was a member his entire life. He married Elizabeth Gertrude Knight, a bryologist, on August 27, 1885. They had met when she joined the club and were lifelong collaborators in botanical research.
During their honeymoon in 1888, they visited Kew Gardens, which led to his wife proposing a botanical garden for New York at a Torrey Club meeting. Together, they campaigned to bring about the NYBG. Britton left Columbia in 1895 to become the first director of the New York Botanical Garden, a position he held until 1929. He was on the first Board of Managers for the institution, along with Andrew Carnegie, J. Pierpont Morgan, and Cornelius Vanderbilt II. He engendered substantial financial support for the botanical garden by naming plants after wealthy contributors.
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