Sydenham Edwards

Nicotiana persica Lindl.

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

Coburgia versicolor Herb.

Sydenham Teak Edwards (1768 – February 8 1819), was a botanical and natural history draughsman.

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 draughtmenship and came to the attention of William Curtis, the publisher of botanical works, and founder of the Curtis's Botanical Magazine who encouraged him to move to London and prepare botanical illustrations for this eminent journal.

Edwards had an enormous output: between 1787 and 1815 he produced over 1,700 water colour drawings 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 after a disagreement with the editors of Curtis's Botanical Magazine. He also provided drawings for encyclopaedias such as Pantologia and Rees's Cylopaedia. 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.

Edwards 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

• An account of his life, with material on Curtis and other contemporaries is at [1]
• View digitized titles by Sydenham Edwards in Botanicus.org

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.