Leopold Hartley Grindon

His plant collection and botanical drawings and writings formed a major asset of the herbarium at Manchester Museum, when it was founded in 1860.

He moved to Manchester at the age of 20, spending a year as an apprentice in a warehouse before becoming a cashier for John Whittaker & Company's cotton business until 1864.

[2][3] Grindon, whose father was a solicitor and coroner, showed an early interest in botany and was self-taught in other areas of science, such as astronomy and geology.

[3] As he put it, "I desired also to introduce every bit of printed matter referring to the plant that might come in my way, with descriptions alike of the individual species and of the Natural Orders, the uses and other particulars also have a place and seeing that Botany is wreathed also with all kinds of poetical and other human associations, everything that would illustrate these was also to go into the Herbarium so-called, which thus to be a Herbarium and a Botanical library fused into one.

[4] He attended the Mechanics' Institute and was appointed to lecture on botany at the Manchester Royal School of Medicine, while offering private tuition in the subject.