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Henry and James Groves

Botanists of Wandsworth Common

Portrait of Henry Groves: a man with a centre parting and a large moustache, in jacket and bow tie, with his signature beneath
Henry Groves (1855–1912). From the Journal of Botany, 1913. (Click on image to enlarge.)

Henry Groves (1855–1912) and his younger brother James (1858–1933) were two of the leading British students of the stoneworts, or Characeae: freshwater green algae that look like small, brittle water plants. They worked together all their lives as their own botanical “firm”, while earning their livings in London offices: Henry at Queen Anne’s Bounty, James at the Army and Navy Stores.

They began as boys in the early 1870s, collecting plants and pond creatures on the London commons. “Wandsworth Common,” James remembered, “was a particularly happy hunting ground for us, in the days before it had been pared down and tidied up so as to conform to municipal ideas of beauty.”

Henry is buried in Streatham Cemetery, Garratt Lane. He was an early trustee of the South London Botanical Institute.

Pages

Plate 392, Nitella hyalina, Ag., drawn by Henry Groves: a whole plant at natural size and magnified details
Henry Groves’s drawing of the stonewort Nitella hyalina, Journal of Botany, 1898: in his brother’s words, “among the best representations of plants of this genus which have been produced”. (Click on image to enlarge.)

Dates

1855Henry Groves born in London, 15 October.
1858His brother James born.
1863The family moves to Godalming, Surrey; Henry at Godalming Grammar School under Peter Churton.
1869Death of their father; the family returns to London. Henry, at 14, goes into a stockbroker’s office.
early 1870sThe brothers collect on the London commons: Wandsworth Common “a particularly happy hunting ground”.
1874They join the South London Microscopical and Natural History Club; meet H. C. Watson at Thames Ditton.
1875Henry finds Rosa hibernica on Barnes Common.
c.1877They begin to study the stoneworts.
1878Their first note: Chara connivens new to Britain.
1880“Review of the British Characeæ” in the Journal of Botany.
1882Henry joins the staff of Queen Anne’s Bounty Office.
1884–97Henry Secretary of the South London Microscopical and Natural History Club.
1892First set of dried British Characeae issued. Henry a Fellow of the Linnean Society.
1896Henry marries Miss Bolton; one daughter.
1898“Notes on British Characeae, 1895–1898”, with Henry’s plate of Nitella hyalina.
1904The brothers edit the ninth edition of Babington’s Manual of British Botany.
1907Henry a Trustee of the South London Botanical Institute.
1910Henry a Linnean Society delegate at the International Botanical Congress, Brussels.
1911Their account of the Characeae in Urban’s Symbolae Antillanae.
1912Henry dies, 2 November, aged 57; buried in Streatham Cemetery.
1913James’s memoir of Henry in the Journal of Botany.
1918James retires from the Army and Navy Stores and moves to the Isle of Wight.
1933James dies, March.

Still to find

About Roy Vickery

Roy Vickery is the compiler of the Plant-Lore archive of folklore and traditions about plants: see The Compiler, on the Plant-Lore website.

Do you know more about Henry or James Groves, or where the family lived in London? Please let me know.