James Sherard may have been educated at Merchant Taylors' School, Northwood,[2] which his brother attended, but his name is nowhere to be found in the published list of students.
[3] On 7 February 1682, apothecary Charles Watts, who served as curator of Chelsea Physic Garden, took him in as an apprentice.
After honing his craft with Watts, Sherard moved to Mark Lane, London, where he started his own very successful business.
He wrote commentary in the margins, including a note that Sherard was friends with George Frideric Handel; this is plausible considering the two's mutual acquaintance in Haym.
Despite his ill health, he made several trips to continental Europe in search of seeds for his garden, which soon became recognized as one of the finest in England.
[4] In 1721, in order to help with a projected revision of Caspar Bauhin's Pinax of 1623, William Sherard brought the German botanist Johann Jacob Dillenius to England.