Background
Martyn was born in London, the son of a merchant. He attended a school in the vicinity of his home, and when he turned 16, worked for his father, intending to follow a business career.
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Martyn was born in London, the son of a merchant. He attended a school in the vicinity of his home, and when he turned 16, worked for his father, intending to follow a business career.
He abandoned this idea in favour of medical and botanical studies. Martyn gave some botanical lectures in London in 1721 and 1726, and in 1727 was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London. Martyn was one of the founders (with Johann Jacob Dillenius and others) and the secretary of a botanical society which met for a few years in the Rainbow coffee-house, Watling Street.
In 1732 he was appointed Professor of Botany at Cambridge University, but, finding little encouragement and hampered by a lack of equipment, he soon ceased lecturing.
On resigning the botanical chair at Cambridge he presented the university with a number of his botanical specimens and books John Martyn married Eulalia King, daughter of John King (1652–1732), rector of Pertenhall in Bedfordshire and Chelsea in London.
Their son, Thomas Martyn (1735–1825) was also an eminent botanist, author of Flora rustica (1792–1794). Although he had not taken a medical degree, he long practised as a physician at Chelsea, which is where he died in 1768.
An expanded version of this memoir was prepared and published by George Gorham in 1830.
John Martyn was a distinguished botanist and author known for his translations of Virgil.
In 1727, John Martyn was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London.
( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)
Royal Society.
