George Luxford

George Luxford (1807–1854) was an English botanist, printer and journalist.

Life

Luxford was born at Sutton, Surrey on 7 April 1807. At age 11 he was apprenticed to Allingham, a printer in Reigate, with whom he remained 16 years, and where he studied.[1]

In 1834 Luxford moved to Birmingham. His obituary notice in The Phytologist states he worked there in the printing and engraving business of "Mr. Allen".[1][2] Under the legislation of the time, a printer had to apply for the licensing of a new press; and in April 1845 Josiah Allen of Birmingham, brother of James Baylis Allen, submitted an application witnessed by "Geo. Luxford" for a recent press. (Business partners could and did act as witnesses.)[3][4] Luxford was elected an associate of the Linnean Society in 1836.[1]

Returning south in 1837, Luxford started in business as a printer in London the next year,[1] and shortly was given a contract by Longmans, to print a magazine edited by John Claudius Loudon.[5] In 1838 he became a Fellow of the Botanical Society of Edinburgh, with address on Ratcliffe Highway;[6] he was also a member of the Botanical Society of London.[7] In 1841 he took on the editorship of The Phytologist for Edward Newman, who that year bought his printing business.[1][8]

For some years Luxford was sub-editor of the Westminster Review.[1] He was also associated with The Globe, in 1844–5.[2][9] According to Rosemary Ashton, as publisher also of the Westminster Review, Luxford made false accounts to the owner, William Edward Hickson, who sold out to John Chapman in 1851.[10]

From 1846 to 1851 Luxford was lecturer on botany in St. Thomas's Hospital.[1] He worked on The Phytologist, in the capacity of compositor and reader, until his death on 12 June 1854, at Walworth.[1][8]

Works

• A Flora of the neighbourhood of Reigate, Surrey, containing the flowering plants and ferns, 1838.[1][11]

Reviews by Luxford in the Westminster Review, by convention unsigned, have been attributed:

• Popular Works on Natural History in 1845;[12]
• Of A History of British Ferns, 1847;[13]
• Of Birds of Jamaica by Philip Gosse;[13]
• Of Illustrations of Instinct by Jonathan Couch;[14]
• Of Lecture on Instinct by Richard Whately;[14]
• Of Vestiges of Creation, sixth edition 1847;[15]
• Of John Lindley's Vegetable Kingdom and other works, including Natural Systems of Botany by James Lawson Drummond, in 1850, attacking in particular the Linnaean system.[16] Drummond replied in 1851 in The Phytologist.[17]

The standard author abbreviation Luxf. is used to indicate this person as the author when citing a botanical name.[18]

Notes

1. Jackson, Benjamin Daydon (1893). "Luxford, George" . In Lee, Sidney (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography. 34. London: Smith, Elder & Co. p. 302.
2. George Luxford; Edward Newman (1856). The Phytologist: A Popular Botanical Miscellany. J. Van Voorst. p. v.
3. Hunnisett, B. "Allen, James Baylis". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/374. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
4. Paul Morgan (1970). Warwickshire printers' notices, 1799-1866. The Dugdale Society. pp. 36, xxxii–xxxiii.
5. Laurel Brake; Marysa Demoor (2009). Dictionary of Nineteenth-century Journalism in Great Britain and Ireland. Academia Press. pp. 383–4. ISBN 978-90-382-1340-8.
6. Botanical Society of Edinburgh (1840). The Botanical Society of Edinburgh: Instituted 17th March 1836. Neill. p. 27.
7. Ray Desmond (25 February 1994). Dictionary Of British and Irish Botanists and Horticulturists, including plant collectors, flower painters and garden designers. CRC Press. p. 443. ISBN 978-0-85066-843-8.
8. Allen, D. E. "Luxford, George". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/17231. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
9. Samuel Austin Allibone (1871). A Critical Dictionary of English Literature and British and American Authors, Living and Deceased, from the Earliest Accounts to the Latter Half of the Nineteenth Century: Containing Over Forty-six Thousand Articles (authors) with Forty Indexes of Subjects. J. B. Lippincott Company. p. 1145.
10. Rosemary Ashton (11 January 2011). 142 Strand: A Radical Address in Victorian London. Random House. p. 85–. ISBN 978-1-4464-2678-4.
11. George Luxford (1838). A Flora of the neighbourhood of Reigate, Surrey, containing the flowering plants and ferns.
12. Gillian Beer; Helen Small; Trudi Tate (2003). Literature, Science, Psychoanalysis, 1830-1970: Essays in Honour of Gillian Beer. Oxford University Press. p. 52 and note 2. ISBN 978-0-19-926667-8.
13. Walter Edwards Houghton; Jean Harris Slingerland (January 1989). The Wellesley Index to Victorian Periodicals, 1824-1900. University of Toronto Press. p. 483. ISBN 978-0-8020-2688-0.
14. Linnean Society of London (1851). Transactions. p. 490.
15. James A. Secord (20 September 2003). Victorian Sensation: The Extraordinary Publication, Reception, and Secret Authorship of Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation. University of Chicago Press. p. 486. ISBN 978-0-226-15825-9.
16. Martin Daunton (26 May 2005). The Organisation of Knowledge in Victorian Britain. OUP/British Academy. pp. 73 note 37, 74. ISBN 978-0-19-726326-6.
17. George Luxford; Edward Newman (1851). The Phytologist: A Popular Botanical Miscellany. J. Van Voorst. pp. 366–8.
18. IPNI.  Luxf.

Attribution

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Lee, Sidney, ed. (1893). "Luxford, George". Dictionary of National Biography. 34. London: Smith, Elder & Co.