Ward and The Wardian Case
The glass case that he used to rear butterflies and grow plants was used widely during the time for introducing plants into the British colonies. In 1833 George Loddiges used Wardian cases for shipping plants from Australia and said that "whereas I used formerly to lose nineteen out of the twenty of the plants I imported during the voyage, nineteen out of the twenty is now the average of those that survive". Loddiges was the Vice-President of The Horticultural Society and Wardian cases became popular.
He attempted to make a greenhouse at the Clapham garden on the principle of the Wardian case. This was however critiqued by John Lindley in the Gardeners' Chronicle, who wrote that "when it is opened and shut from day to day, it has no more right to the name than a common greenhouse". Lindley also wrote saying that Ward had an inordinate vanity and a desire to be 'recognised a second Newton'.
Dr Ward delivered a lecture on his discovery of a way to preserve plants in 1854 to the Royal Society at the Chelsea Physic Garden. He also worked on microscopy and helped in the development of the Chelsea Physic Garden as a member of the board. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1852.
He died at St Leonards, Sussex and is buried in an unmarked grave in West Norwood Cemetery
Read more about this topic: Nathaniel Bagshaw Ward
Famous quotes containing the words ward and/or case:
“Mister Ward, don’t yur blud bile at the thawt that three million and a half of your culled brethren air a clanking their chains in the South?—Sez I, not a bile! Let ‘em clank!”
—Artemus Ward (1834–1867)
“Of all my prosecutors ... not one is my peer, but each and all are my political sovereigns; and had your honor submitted my case to the jury, as was clearly your duty, then I should have had just cause of protest, for not one of those men was my peer; but, native or foreign born, white or black, rich or poor, educated or ignorant, sober or drunk, each and every man of them was my political superior; hence, in no sense, my peer.”
—Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906)