Smith described Markham as 'a young man of large fortune from Leeds, who studies physic as an amusement, and is an excellent botanist; but has just left Edinburgh and 'tis uncertain whether he will return'.

Later, Markham wrote to Joseph Banks that in 1785, Anna Salisbury, an elderly spinster without heirs who was a distant relative of his mother and who shared his love of plants, had settled on him a substantial amount of money.

[b][3][5][7][6] Following his studies, Markham, now Salisbury pursued the life of country gentleman of wealth at Chapel Allerton, Leeds, one of his father's estates.

Salisbury had apparently misrepresented his finances when he had proposed marriage, and had large debts at the time of his daughter's birth and had declared bankruptcy for dubious purposes.

"[5]In July 1818, an anonymous article appeared in The Monthly Review (86: 298–305) that was highly critical of Brown's account of plants acquired on a Congo expedition.

[10] His contributions to English botany include a Corsican pine (Pinus nigra) delivered to Kew Gardens, and his herbarium was also passed there via his adopted son, Matthew Burchill.

His manuscripts were obtained by John Edward Gray, who published part as Genera Plantarum[11] and deposited the remaining documents at the British Museum.

The portrait in pencil by Burchell (1817), acquired by Kew, and Smith's genus Salisburia, a synonym for Ginkgo, denote his part in the history of British botany.

[9] Salisbury's first known publication was his Icones stirpium rariorum descriptionibus illustratae (1791),[12] a collection of 11 hand coloured plates, including the first description of Canna flaccida, which therefore bears his name as the botanical authority Salisb..[13]This was followed in 1796 with an account of the plants on his Chapel Allerton estate.

[14][3] Salisbury was unpopular with his contemporaries for his rejection, (subsequently demonstrated to be correct (of the Linnaen system of plant classification, the systema sexuale) still supported by Smith among others.

Salisbury had memorised the plant names from Robert Brown's reading of his On the Proteaceae of Jussieu to the Linnean Society of London in the first quarter of 1809, which was subsequently published in March 1810.

Samuel Goodenough wrote: How shocked was I to see Salisbury's surreptitious anticipation of Brown's paper on New Holland plants, under the name and disguise of Mr. Hibbert's gardener!