Lewis Weston Dillwyn

Lewis Weston Dillwyn
Lewis Weston Dillwyn
وُلِدَ	21 أغسطس 1778; Walthamstow, Essex, England
توفي	31 أغسطس 1855 (aged 77); Sketty Hall, near Swansea, Wales
عـُرِف بـ	The British Confervae
الزوج	Mary Adams
الأنجال	Six, including John Dillwyn Llewelyn, Lewis Llewelyn Dillwyn, Mary Dillwyn, Suzanna
الوالدان	William Dillwyn (الأب); Sarah Dillwyn (née Weston) (الأم);
	السيرة العلمية
المجالات	Porcelain manufacturer, naturalist, Member of Parliament
Author abbrev. (botany)	Dillwyn

Lewis Weston Dillwyn, FRS^[1] (21 August 1778 – 31 August 1855) was a British porcelain manufacturer, naturalist and Whig Member of Parliament (MP).

Biography

He was born in Walthamstow, Essex, the eldest son of William Dillwyn and Sarah Dillwyn (née Weston). His father, a Pennsylvanian Quaker had returned to Britain in 1777 during Philadelphia's worst period in the American War of Independence and settled at Higham Lodge, Walthamstow, Essex, UK. William Dillwyn was a vociferous anti-slavery campaigner and toured England and South Wales in his work for the Anti-Slavery Committee. William Dillwyn was related to George Haynes through the Emlen and Physick families in Philadelphia and it is likely that the opportunity to buy the Cambrian Pottery in Swansea, Wales, from Haynes came about through these family connections in America.

William's letters to his daughter Suzanna are held by the Library Company of Philadelphia and stored at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. These letters show that the factory was bought by William to keep Lewis active while the latter was suffering from gout. The highlight of this period of production of Swansea Pottery was the opening by Lewis Weston Dillwyn and George Haynes of the Cambrian Company, the Swansea Potteries London Warehouse on Fleet Street which operated between 1806 and 1807.^[2] In 1814 the pottery took over the workforce of the Nantgarw Pottery and began to make porcelain.

Lewis Weston Dillwyn however was also renowned for his published works on botany and conchology, including his 1809 work The British Confervae, an illustrated study of British freshwater algae, and The Botanist's Guide through England and Wales (1805), which he compiled with Dawson Turner. Dillwyn also edited an exsiccata-like series distributing herbarium specimens under the title British Confervae.^[3] Dillwyn is credited with discovering several species of the Conferva genus. Among the botanical illustrators of The British Confervae are the artists William Jackson Hooker, Ellen Hutchins and William Weston Young. He was elected in 1804 as a Fellow of the Royal Society.

His expertise was valued by several of his neighbours who also had an interest in natural history, most notably the Talbot family at Penrice, including their cousin, the young Henry Fox Talbot. He often accompanied them on walks on the sea shore, corresponded, and shared advice and specimens.^[4]

In 1817 he temporarily retired from the pottery. In 1818 he became High Sheriff of Glamorgan and was elected to the First Reformed Parliament in 1834 as MP for Glamorganshire. He bought Sketty Hall near Swansea and was elected Mayor of Swansea in 1839. Dillwyn was also one of the founders of the Royal Institution of South Wales and its first President, and in 1840 he published a short history of Swansea.

He married Mary Adams, the daughter of Colonel John Llewelyn of Penllergaer, Llangyfelach in 1807. They had six children, including the noted photographer John Dillwyn Llewelyn (1810–1882), MP for Swansea Lewis Llewelyn Dillwyn (1814-1892) and pioneering female photographer Mary Dillwyn. His granddaughters by his son Lewis were the novelist and industrialist Amy Dillwyn, and lepidopterist Mary De la Beche Nicholl. His granddaughter by John was the Welsh astronomer and pioneer in scientific photography Thereza Dillwyn Llewelyn.^[5]

He died in Sketty Hall, Swansea, in 1855.

Dillwyn هو المختصر الرسمي لاسم عالم النبات Dillwyn, Lew المستعمل في التسميات العلمية اللاتينية للنباتات.

.

Honours

He is honoured in the names of several species including, Dillwynella which is a genus of sea snails, marine gastropod mollusks in the family Skeneidae named by Dall in 1889.^[6] Dillwynia, which is a genus of about 20 species of flowering plants in the family Fabaceae, and is endemic to Australia, named by Sm. in 1805.^[7]

Arms

دروع Lewis Weston Dillwyn
ملف:Coat of arms of Lewis Weston Dillwyn (1778-1855).svg	Crest A stag's head couped Proper. Escutcheon Gules, on a chevron Argent three cinquefoils slipped of the First. Motto Craignez Honte (Fear shame) ^[8]

Taxa

Taxa named by Dillwyn include:

Lithopoma gibberosa, a species of sea snail

References

^ "DServe Archive Catalog Show". collections.royalsociety.org. Archived from the original on 23 مارس 2022. Retrieved 23 أبريل 2019.
^ See The Cambrian Company, Swansea Pottery In London 1806-1808, Jonathan Gray 2012
^ "British Confervae: IndExs ExsiccataID=1066831872". IndExs – Index of Exsiccatae. Botanische Staatssammlung München. Retrieved 18 أكتوبر 2024.
^ Anne Secord, 'Talbot’s first lens: Botanical vision as an exact science'. In Brusius, Mirjam; Dean, Katrina; Ramalingam, Chitra (eds.). William Henry Fox Talbot: Beyond Photography, 2013. New Haven: Yale Center for British Art. pp 41–66. ISBN 978-0-300-17934-7. Scott, Brad (2025). "A family moss craze: Learning, reading and skill development in a botanical and domestic network in early nineteenth-century England and Wales". British Journal for the History of Science. 59 (1): 41-57. doi:10.1017/S0007087425000378.
^ Bohata, Kirsti. "Dictionary of Welsh Biography".
^ قالب:WRMS species
^ "Dillwynia". Australian Plant Census. Retrieved 15 مايو 2021.
^ Burke, Bernard (1884). The General Armory of England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales. p. 286.

W. H. Auden (July 20, 2011) Lewis Weston Dillwyn MP FRS (I9739) Auden.Stanford.Edu