HENRY TRIMEN, F.R.S. (1843–96)

Abstract

HENRY TRIMEN was born in Paddington, London, on October 26, 1843. He received his education at King's College School (then in the Strand) and even as a schoolboy showed an ardent liking for natural history, beginning to form a herbarium and frequently visiting the Botanical Department of the British Museum to determine his collections. As with so many others of those days, he found his best opportunity of receiving further biological training lay in the study of medicine, and from school he entered the Medical College at King's in 1860, graduating M.B. with honours in 1865. After graduation he held for a short time an appointment as medical officer during a cholera epidemic in the Strand. But already it was clear that his main interest lay in the field of systematic botany. For this subject he was exceptionally well endowed with a natural ability for thorough and accurate observation and with a strong interest in historical studies, while his work throughout was characterized by a breadth of outlook to which his medical background made no small contribution.