Henry Cranke Andrews

Henry Cranke Andrews (fl. 1794 – 1830), was an English botanist, botanical artist and engraver. As he always published as Henry C. Andrews, and due to difficulty finding records, the C. was often referred to as Charles, until a record of his marriage registration was found in 2017.[1][2]

Henry Cranke Andrew
NationalityBritish
Scientific career
FieldsBotany
Erica grandiflora L.f. 1802

He lived in Knightsbridge, and was married to Anne Kennedy,[3] the daughter of John Kennedy of Hammersmith, a nurseryman who assisted Andrews in the descriptions of the plants he illustrated.

He was an accomplished and unusual botanical artist, in that he was not only the artist but also the engraver, colourist, and publisher of his books in an era when most artists were only employed to draw plates. The Botanist's Repository was his first publication; issued serially in London in ten volumes between 1797 and 1812, the Repository at a half-crown an issue, provided affordable images of plants to the growing population of amateur gardeners in Britain. This was the first serious rival to the Kew publication, Curtis's Botanical Magazine. Perhaps not surprisingly, W. Botting Hemsley, a botanist who was employed by Kew, was critical of the quality of Andrews' 664 coloured plates in the Botanist's Repository:

"The drawing is usually fairly good, though not equal to some of this artist's later work... There is no pretense of giving any analysis of the flowers, but they themselves are often inexact and generally inadequate to be of any use botantically. The descriptive part is also unequal, and synonymy altogether excluded. Nevertheless, the Repository was in one sense superior to the Botanical Magazine of that date, because the majority of the plants figured were of recent introduction."[4]

Andrews' major work is considered to be his Coloured Engravings of Heaths, published in four volumes between 1794 and 1830.[3] It focused on the many species of the genus Erica that were introduced to Great Britain from South Africa in the early and middle 19th century, leading to what has been called an "Erica mania" in British horticulture.[5][6]

According to a contemporary announcement, Andrews also taught drawing from nature and etching to private students.[3]

Publications
  • Botanists Repository, Comprising Colour'd Engravings of New and Rare Plants (London, 1797–1812; 10 vols.)
  • Coloured Engravings of Heaths 1794–1830 (4 vols.)
  • The Heathery 1804–1812 (6 vols.)
  • Geraniums or A Monograph of the Genus Geranium (London, 1805–1806; 2 vols.)
  • Roses 1805–1828

References
  1. Nelson, E. Charles (March 2017). "Henry C. Andrews, Botanical Artist and Publisher". Notes and Queries. Oxford University Press. 64 (1): 95–97. Retrieved 2020-08-08. from at least 1961... common practice for bibliographers and historians of botany to call him Henry Charles Andrews
  2. Nelson, E. Charles (July 2017). H. C. Andrews Mystery Solved (PDF). Society for the History of Natural History. 112. p. 18–19. Retrieved 2020-08-08. the ‘C.’ is now known to stand for Cranke and not Charles
  3. Cleevely, R.J. "Original Drawings of Heaths Associated with Henry Charles Andrews.". In Heathers: Yearbook of the Heathers Society, vol. 6, 2009, pp. 34–42.
  4. Hemsley, 1906. in A New and Complete Index to the Botanical Magazine, "The history of the Botanical Magazine", p. xxiv
  5. "Humble Heather". BibliOdyssey blog, June 23, 2015.
  6. "Andrews, H.C.". Antiquariaat Unk website, n.d.
  7. IPNI.  Andrews.


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