James Petiver

[2] In 1692 he set up his apothecary practice "at the sign of the white cross" on Aldersgate and lived in London for the rest of his life.

The Temple Coffee House Botany Club, an informal group set up around 1689 by several people, including Dr Hans Sloane, was a place of botanical discussion.

Petiver began to collect objects of natural history through his networks and his office became a centre for visiting travellers and collectors.

One visitor, Zacharias von Uffenbach, noted that his specimens were poorly documented and heaped into a cabinet unworthy of display.

His body was taken on 10 April, the pallbearers included Sir Hans Sloane, Dr Levit and four other physicians and was buried at St Botolph Church on Aldersgate.

He called skippers "hogs", swallowtails "Royal Williams", walls as "Enfield Eyes" and marbled whites as "Half-Mourners".

[9] Petiver received many specimens, seeds and much other material from overseas correspondents including Samuel Browne and Edward Bulkley in Madras, Jezreel Jones in Barbary, and the Czech Jesuit Georg Joseph Kamel in Manila.

After his death, his collections went to his sister Jane Woodstock and were purchased by Sir Hans Sloane for £4000, and some of it is now in the Natural History Museum in London.

Petiver's instructions for specimen collectors, c. 1709
Musei Petiveriani centuriae , 1695