Sydenham Edwards

Nicotiana persica Lindl.

Indigofera dosua Buch.-Ham. ex D. Don.

Coburgia versicolor Herb.

Sydenham Teast Edwards (1768 – February 8 1819), was a natural history illustrator.

Sydenham Edwards was born in 1768 at Brynbuga (Usk), Wales, the son of Lloyd Pittell Edwards, a schoolmaster and organist, and his wife, Mary Reese. Young Edwards had a precocious talent for draughtmanship and when only 11 years old had copied plates from Flora Londinensis for his own enjoyment. A certain Mr. Denman, visited Abergavenny in 1779 and saw some of Edwards' work. Denman, being a friend of William Curtis, the publisher of botanical works, and founder of the Curtis's Botanical Magazine, spoke to Curtis about the boy. Curtis proceeded to have Edwards trained in both botany and botanical illustration.

Edwards had an enormous output: between 1787 and 1815 he produced over 1,700 watercolours for the Botanical Magazine alone. He illustrated Cynographica Britannica 1800, New Botanic Garden 1805-7, New Flora Britannica 1812, and Botanical Register 1815-19. Edwards established the latter under his own editorship in 1815 after a disagreement with John Sims, who succeeded William Curtis as editor. He also provided drawings for encyclopaedias such as Pantologia and Rees's Cyclopaedia. Edwards was a Fellow of the Linnean Society.

Edwards's work was the inspiration of the decoration of ceramics made by a number of major potters of the time, such as Spode.

He was buried at Chelsea Old Church (All Saints), London.

There is confusion over the spelling of his middle name. He was baptised Sydenham Edwards, but by the 1790s adopted the middle name 'Teak' on some of the signatures of his drawings. His death certificate has this as 'Teaste', whereas his tombstone, in Chelsea Old Church, it was 'Teast'. The tombstone was destroyed by bombing in World War Two, but has been replaced.

External links

• Biography of Curtis and contemporaries
• View digitized titles by Sydenham Edwards in Botanicus.org
• Garden Flowers by Sydenham Edwards et al.

References

DNB article 'Edwards, Sydenham'.

Davies, Kevin L., 'The life and work of Sydenham Edwards, Welshman, Botanical and Animal Draughtsman 1768-1819', Minerva: the Journal of Swansea History, published by the Royal Institution of South Wales / Friends of Swansea Museum, 2001.