1542-1612

English Botanist

John Gerard was one of the most important English botanists. He is known primarily for his Herball, or Generall Historie of Plantes (1597), a book that combined medical knowledge of plants with poetic prose, personal observations, and elaborate illustrations. This book is significant for its content, but is also important because, due to its popularity, it demonstrates the extent to which publishing transformed Elizabethan English society.

John Gerard's botanical texts remain among the most significant and useful written in the English language. Gerard was born in Nantwick in 1545 and was trained as a barber-surgeon. While he never attended university, he was apprenticed to Alexander Mason, a London barber-surgeon with a large practice, from 1561-1568. From 1568 until some time in the 1570s Gerard was the surgeon of a merchant ship. It appears likely that he sailed on a ship of the Merchant Adventurers. The only...