William was the fifth son of John Bartram (1699-1777), a Quaker and the King’s
botanist in America. Both father and son are considered to be the first American
natural scientists. William was born in his father’s house at Kingsessing, on the
banks of the Schuylkill River, now a part of Philadelphia. It was here that John
Bartram created his botanical garden in 1729 that became famous throughout Europe
and America. A fellow Quaker in England, Peter Collinson, employed John Bartram
to collect and send to England seed and specimens of American plants. About 175
specimens collected from Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York were sent by
John Bartram to Sir Hans Sloane and are now held in the Botany Department of the
Natural History Museum.

By the age of fourteen years William was already displaying a talent for drawing. He
accompanied his father on his travels hunting for plants and drawing many of the
specimens found. It was from these journeys that William formed his knowledge and
love of plants and wildlife. His father sent some of William’s drawings to Collinson in
England and the earliest known of these is Dendroica magnolia : Magnolia Warbler
(No.64) drawn when William was 16 years of age. Collinson introduced William’s
drawings to Fothergill, a physician and fellow Quaker and botanist. Fothergill was
also owner of the largest botanical garden in England at the time. It was Fothergill
who in later years became the patron of William providing the financial support for his
travels in 1773.

William’s early adulthood was not an easy life. His father’s desire for William to exert
himself and settle into a secure occupation was fraught with failure. William struggled
to establish himself but his passion was drawing and natural history and his attempts
at farming and trading were unsuccessful. In 1765 William travelled with his father
through the Carolinas, Georgia and Florida. It was on this trip that they discovered the
beautiful Franklinia. (No.1)

Between 1770 and 1772 William travelled through North Carolina and from this trip he
supplied Fothergill with some drawings. But it was his trip of 1773-1775, sponsored
by Fothergill that the majority of his drawings were made that now constitutes the
collection held at the Natural History Museum in London. In March 1773 Bartram set
sail “At the request of Dr. Fothergill, of London, to search the Floridas, and the
western parts of Carolina and Georgia, for the discovery of rare and useful productions
of nature, chiefly in the vegetable kingdom;..” (p.1 Travels.)
Bartram published an account of his journey in 1791 entitled Travels through North &
South Carolina, Georgia, East & West Florida : the Cherokee country, the extensive
territories of the Muscogulges, or creek confederacy, and the country of the
Chactaws. It is in his Travels that Bartram describes his observations of plants and
animals in a manner unlike any other natural historian of his day or since. His writing
is a scientific work merged with poetic imagery that is accessible to all. “what a
sylvan scene is here! the pompos magnolia, reigns sovereign of the forests; how
sweet the aromatic Illisium groves! How gaily flutters the radiated wings of the
magnolia auriculata! Each branch supporting an expanded unbrella, superbly
crested with a silver plume, fragrant blossom, or crimson studded strobile and
fruits!” (p. 258 Travels)

William Bartram returned to the house in Kingsessing after his travels in the South in
1777 and lived out his life there for a further 46 years. During these years
distinguished naturalists from Europe and America mingled with presidents, governors
and congressmen during their visit to the now famous Bartram and his garden. Fellow
naturalists considered Bartram as one of the most learned botanists America had
produced. Many of them were indebted to Bartram for his keen observation of nature
and his readiness to impart this knowledge and understanding of the natural world to
others. In 1832 George Ord wrote of Bartram that “He was a source of reference to
many naturalists of his day, and there was scarcely an American or foreign writer who
attempted the natural history of this country but applied to him for information on their
relative treatises,..” (Biographical sketch of W. Bartram: Cabinet of natural history and
American rural sports 2, p.1-7 Ord 1832)

William Bartram’s drawings are interesting as works of art but are also of significant
scientific value. Many of the plants and animals drawn by Bartram were previously
unknown to science and some are considered ‘type specimens’ in lieu of an actual
specimen preserved elsewhere. Together with his Travels these drawings give valuable
information on the distribution of various animals and plants. Bartram was truly an
important figure in the American Enlightenment. His observations of Native
Americans (the Creeks and Seminoles) are as significant as those made of plants
and animals. Whilst his literary accomplishments have influenced writers and
poets throughout the past two hundred years including Wordsworth and Coleridge.
The collection held in the Botany Library of the Natural History Museum consists of a
total of 68 drawings, 17 of these are watercolours, six are incomplete watercolours
and the remaining 45 have been executed in pen and ink. Included in the 44 are
many sketches and two maps.

The scientific names for the specimens in the drawings No.1-64 have been taken from
Joseph Ewan’s book William Bartram : Botanical and Zoological Drawings, 1756-1788
and published by The American Philosophical Society, 1968. Numbers 65-67 have
been identified by staff at the Natural History Museum.
The size of the drawings given here is that of the remaining original paper which has
over the course of the past 200 years been cut down.

 

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