Botany
With an interest in botany, Balfour was prominent in the moves to establish the Botanical Society of Edinburgh in 1836 and the Edinburgh Botanical Club in 1838. In 1840 he began giving lectures on botany with some success and in 1841 he was appointed professor of botany at Glasgow University. In 1845, Balfour transferred to the chair of botany at Edinburgh University and was nominated keeper of the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh. These appointments followed a protracted political struggle in which Balfour triumphed over his distinguished opponent, Joseph Dalton Hooker, a close associate of Charles Darwin.
Balfour served for many years as dean of the faculty of medicine in Edinburgh University and he was an enormously successful teacher of botany, lacing his scientific lectures with theological asides, as he remained profoundly wedded to natural theology. In January 1862, he corresponded with Charles Darwin on botanical matters, recollecting their evenings together at the Plinian Society with his brother-in-law William A.F. Browne. He also corresponded with the extraordinary and irascible botanist Hewett Cottrell Watson, an early phrenologist, evolutionist and advocate of the differential development of the human cerebral hemispheres.
Under Balfour's care the Royal Botanic Garden was enlarged and improved and a palm-house, arboretum, and teaching accommodation were built. His publications include botanical text-books such as Manual of Botany (1848), Class Book of Botany (1852), Outlines of Botany (1854), Elements of Botany for Schools (1869), Botanist's Companion (1860), Introduction to Palaeontological Botany (1872), and The Plants of Scripture. He also contributed to the article on botany in the 8th edition of Encyclopaedia Britannica. Balfour retired from his academic post in 1879. His son, Sir Isaac Bayley Balfour (1853–1922), became a distinguished botanist in his own right, serving as Sherardian Professor at Oxford University from 1884 to 1888, before returning to his father's old Chair at Edinburgh.
California's foxtail pine is named Pinus balfouriana Balf. after him.
His great-great-granddaughter is actress Tilda Swinton.
The standard author abbreviation Balf. is used to indicate this individual as the author when citing a botanical name.Read more about this topic: John Hutton Balfour
Famous quotes containing the word botany:
“...some sort of false logic has crept into our schools, for the people whom I have seen doing housework or cooking know nothing of botany or chemistry, and the people who know botany and chemistry do not cook or sweep. The conclusion seems to be, if one knows chemistry she must not cook or do housework.”
—Ellen Henrietta Swallow Richards (1842–1911)