Worthington George Smith

He put his former experience to use by producing illustrations for The Builder (a journal still published today) and continued as a regular contributor for the next twenty years.

In 1878, he described himself thus:[3] the writer of these lines never had any teacher, either artistic or scientific, other than he always found supplied to him by close observation, careful reading, experience, and constant perseverance.Smith had an interest in natural history and gardening, and gradually developed a reputation as a botanical illustrator.

His first major work in 1867 was to produce coloured illustrations of poisonous and edible fungi, printed in linen-backed poster format with an accompanying booklet.

[4][7] In 1875, Smith published a paper describing and illustrating the overwintering spores of Phytophthora infestans, the causal agent of late blight of potatoes, the disease responsible for the Great Famine of Ireland.

[9] He restored Sowerby's clay models of fungal fruitbodies displayed at the Natural History Museum and in 1898 wrote a successful short guide to them[10] (later revised and reissued by John Ramsbottom).

Smith helped publicize the club and its forays with a series of cartoons in various journals, some of them caricaturing the leading mycologists of the day.

He also designed illustrated menus in similar style for the club's annual fungus dinners at the Green Dragon in Hereford.

Smith became an honorary member of the club and in 1874, as a token of appreciation, was presented with a set of cutlery engraved with fungi taken from his illustrations.

Lloyd claimed his Synopsis of the British Basidiomycetes resembled "an attempt by someone living in the Sahara to write a book about a rain forest.

In 1878 he found stone tools in building excavations at Stoke Newington Common and traced the tool-bearing layer over a wide area of north-east London.

In 1903 he became the first freeman of the borough of Dunstable, "in appreciation of the eminent services rendered to his country in connection with his profession, and his munificent gifts to the Corporation".