William Keble Martin

The Rev. William Keble Martin (9 July 1877, Radley – 26 November 1969, Woodbury) was a Church of England priest, botanist and botanical illustrator, known for his Concise British Flora in Colour.

The Concise British Flora was published in May 1965 when the author was 88. The book was the result of 60 years' meticulous fieldwork and exquisite painting skills, and became an immediate best-seller. He completed over 1,400 paintings in colour and many black-and-white drawings before the book was finally published.

Keble Martin was the grandson of Dr George Moberly, headmaster of Winchester and later Bishop of Salisbury. He was brother to architect Arthur Campbell Martin CVO FRIBA (1875-1963) and was also connected to John Keble of the Oxford Movement. His father was appointed as the Rector of Dartington, near Totnes, when William was 14 years old.

He was educated at Marlborough, and went up to Christ Church, Oxford in 1896 to read Greek Philosophy and Botany. He trained for the church at Cuddesdon Theological College. After ordination, he worked in industrial parishes in the north and Midlands (one of these was Wath-upon-Dearne, the subject of his first book) and, in the First World War, as a chaplain in France. In 1921 he was offered the benefice of Haccombe and Coffinswell in Devon and in 1934 became the incumbent of St Michael and All Angels, Great Torrington. (He was the Archpriest of Haccombe and Rector of Coffinswell.) Keble Martin saw a vision of a new church in a dream, and his brother architect transformed the dream into reality - now a listed building, St Luke the Evangelist Church at Milber, Newton Abbot is remarkable for its exceptional interior space and extraordinary plan with three angled naves, linked by arcades with granite columns, which converge on the central altar. The exterior walls are white render with a pyramidal copper-clad roof on a squat square tower. Keble Martin retired in 1949 at the age of 72, but continued to work in the church.

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