Background
Lhuyd was born in 1660, in Loppington, England, the natural son of Edward Lloyd and Bridget Pryse.
Upper Brook St, Oswestry SY11 2TL, United Kingdom
Lhuyd attended Oswestry Grammar School.
Turl St, Oxford OX1 3DW, United Kingdom
Lhuyd entered Jesus College, Oxford in 1682, where he studied for five years, but did not graduate.
Oxford OX1 2JD, United Kingdom
Lhuyd received Master of Arts honoris causa from the University of Oxford in 1701.
https://www.amazon.com/Archaeologia-Britannica-additional-inhabitants-collections-ebook/dp/B00N6TYPKS/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_2?dchild=1&keywords=Archaeologia+Britannica%3A+an+Account+of+the+Languages%2C+Histories+and+Customs+of+Great+Britain%2C+from+Travels+through+Wales%2C+Cornwall%2C+Bas-Bretagne%2C+Ireland+and+Scotland&qid=1587460806&sr=8-2-fkmr0
1707
(“Letter giving an Account of some uncommon Plants growing...)
“Letter giving an Account of some uncommon Plants growing in Cornwall” is a letter written by Welsh naturalist, botanist, and linguist Edward Lhwyd (1660-1709, surname also spelled Lhuyd, or Llwyd. Lhwyd was also known by the Latinized name Eduardus Luidius). In this letter, Lhwyd describes some of the “uncommon” plants he has found in Cornwall. Cornwall, a mountainous county in the southwestern corner of England, was a place where a Brythonic Celtic language survived. Like Welsh, and Breton, Cornish was descended from the Celtic language spoken in much of Great Britain before the arrival of the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes. The Cornish language survived the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons, but died out in the 18th century, as Cornwall’s inhabitants abandoned their ancestral language in favour of the more dominant English language.
https://www.amazon.com/Letter-Account-Uncommon-Growing-Cornwall-ebook/dp/B014N1C23E/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=The+Life+and+Letters+of+Edward+Lhuyd&qid=1587461203&sr=8-1
antiquary Botanist geographer linguist naturalist scientist
Lhuyd was born in 1660, in Loppington, England, the natural son of Edward Lloyd and Bridget Pryse.
Lhuyd attended and later taught at Oswestry Grammar School. He entered Jesus College, Oxford in 1682, where he studied for five years, but did not graduate. He received Master of Arts honoris causa from the University of Oxford in 1701.
In order to increase his limited means, Edward soon became assistant to Robert Plot, professor of chemistry and first keeper of the Ashmolean Museum. This museum, opened in 1683, was founded on the collections of John Tradescant father and son, augmented by the donor, Elias Ashmole. It was through his connection with the museum and with Plot, at that time secretary of the Royal Society, that Lhuyd was able to establish important scientific contacts.
During visits to north Wales, Lhuyd collected plants around the hill mass of Snowdon. He was the first to record, in Edmund Gibson’s edition of Camden’s Britannia (1695), that the mountains of Britain have a distinctive alpine flora and fauna. Lhuyd compiled a list of plants from Snowdon, which was published by John Ray in his Synopsis methodica Stirpium Britannicarum (1690), and Ray referred to these records as “the greatest adornment” of his book.
Lhuyd also assisted Martin Lister with lists of Oxfordshire species of mollusks and fossils, and some of his specimens were used in Lister’s Historiae sive synopsis methodice Conchyliorum (1685-1692). By the time he succeeded Plot as keeper of the Ashmolean Museum in 1691, Lhuyd’s interest in formed stones (fossils) had superseded his botanical interests. In 1686 he put before the Oxford Philosophical Society a new catalog of the shells in the Ashmolean Museum; and during the next few years he continued to add to it, with a view to publication. The work eventually appeared in 1699 in a limited edition of only 120 copies. The cost was subscribed by some of his patrons and friends, including Isaac Newton, Hans Sloane, and Martin Lister. Written in Latin and entitled Lithophylacii Britannici ichnographia, it consisted of a catalog of 1, 766 localized items arranged systematically and was the first illustrated catalog of a public collection of fossils to be published in England.
In 1695 Lhuyd contributed notes on the southern counties of Wales to Camden’s Britannia, and out of this there arose an invitation to undertake a work on the natural history of Wales. Eventually it was proposed to include all the Celtic countries and to cover natural history, geology, history, archaeology, and philology. In May 1697, Lhuyd began a great tour which took him through Wales, Ireland, part of Scotland, Cornwall, and across into Brittany. He collected or transcribed many Welsh and Gaelic manuscripts; and when he returned to Oxford in 1701, he intended to publish his researches in two volumes, the first on linguistic studies, the second on archaeology and natural history. The first volume of Archaeologia Britannica appeared in 1707 and contained the first comparative study of the Celtic languages and an Irish Gaelic dictionary.
(“Letter giving an Account of some uncommon Plants growing...)
Lhuyd hoped that the considerable depth at which fossils are found could be explained by the hypothesis he put forward. He suggested a sequence in which mists and vapors over the sea were impregnated with the “seed” of marine animals. These were raised and carried for considerable distances before they descended over the land in rain and fog. The “invisible animalcula” then penetrated deep into the earth and there germinated; and in this way complete replicas of sea organisms, or sometimes only parts of individuals, were reproduced in stone. Lhuyd also suggested that fossil plants, known to him only as resembling leaves of ferns and mosses which have minute “seed,” were formed in the same manner. He claimed that this theory explained a number of features about fossils in a satisfactory manner - the presence in England of nautiluses and exotic shells which were no longer found in neighboring seas; the absence of birds and viviparous animals not found by Lhuyd as fossils; the varying and often quite large size of the forms, not usual in present oceans; and the variation in preservation from perfect replica to vague representation, which was thought to indicate degeneration with time.
Nothing is known of Lhuyd's family.