John Banister (c1650–1692)
John Banister (c1650–1692) was a naturalist in the Virginia colony while serving as a missionary chaplain, who probably became interested in North American plants while studying at Oxford. Banister was born about 1650, to John Banister & his wife in Gloucestershire, England. In 1667, he matriculated at Magdalen College, University of Oxford. While Banister was an undergraduate, Dr. Robert Morison (1620-1683) became Oxford's 1st professor of botany. Banister may have attended his lectures in the Oxford Physick Garden, where he actually could see & study American plants grown from seed in the Oxford Physic Garden by Morison.
Bannister was sent to North America by the garden-loving Bishop of London Henry Compton (1632-1713), with whom he soon established a correspondence. As bishop of London, Compton encouraged the newly founded Society for the Propagation of the Gospel & missionary work in America. Compton was celebrated for his flower-filled garden at Fulham Palace, where Banister's Virginia trees flourished in the gardens of Fulham Palace.
There were few botanical gardens in London at this time. A serious student of botany, Compton was keen to import rare species. As Bishop of London, Compton was responsible for the Church of England overseas, including colonies in America. He arranged for Reverand Banister, himself an able botanist, to be sent to Virginia as a missionary in 1678, & to send back seeds & cuttings, which Compton then grew at Fulham Palace. Consignments were sent in 1683 & 1688. Notable plants he collected & sent to his bishop, Henry Compton, in England included balsam fir (Abies balsamea), box elder (Acer negundo), honey locust (Gleditsia triacanthos), liquidambar (Liquidambar styraciflua), scarlet oak (Quercus coccinea), & Sweetbay magnolia (Magnolia virginiana). The 1st magnolia in Europe was grown at Fulham Palace, Magnolia virginiana, & other species were planted such as the Cork oak, Quercus suber, the Black walnut, Juglans nigra, & maples, some of which are still represented in the grounds. The fame of the Bishop's garden spread & visitors (including John Evelyn in 1681) came to Fulham Palace to inspect the trees, & over a thousand "exotics" were grown in stove-houses. Compton also received seeds from other parts of the world & was part of a group of botanical enthusiasts who met at the Temple Coffee house to exchange information & seeds. One of Compton’s Fulham Palace gardeners was George London who went on to found the nursery of London & Wise at Brompton.
Banister was 1st in Barbados & Grenada & then by April 1679 in Virginia, where, while serving a rector of the parish of Bristol Parish in Charles City. He also became one of Bishop Compton's most energetic plant collectors. Exploring to the Virginia foothills, Banister collected plant specimens to send back to England. His primary focus was botany, but he also studied insects & molluscs.
In 1688, Banister married Martha Batte, daughter of Thomas & Mary (Randolph) Batte.. They had one son. Banister was among the clergymen who attended the July 1690, meeting in Jamestown to make plans for the College of William & Mary. Banister purchased 1,735 acres on the Appomattox River in 1689/90. Banister became friends with neighbor William Byrd of Westover (c1652–1704), an influential Virginia planter with botanical connections in London, who was engaged in trading with Indians. Banister accompanied Byrd on several trading expeditions as far as the foothills of the mountains.
On May 16, 1692, Jacob Colson, an employee of William Byrd who accompanied the expedition, accidentally killed John Banister. Byrd became the guardian of Banister's namesake son & obtained his library of 80+ volumes, some of which are now in Philadelphia libraries. Lieutenant Governor Francis Nicholson directed that Banister's collections of specimens & drawings be assembled & his catalogs copied, & the originals were sent to Bishop Compton in London. Martha Batte Banister
After Banister's death his letters, collections, & drawings, most of which found their way to England, made major contributions to the advancement of scientific knowledge. Banister's notes were used by European naturalists & historians, often without attribution, in their published works on North America. Other naturalists named plants for Banister, & William Houstoun (c1695-1733) gave the name Banisteria to a class of plants. In his Species Plantanum (1753), Carolus Linnaeus (1707-1778) cited specimens that Banister had collected & described. He sent botanical drawings & specimens to botanist James Petiver (1665-1718), a London apothecary and Fellow of the Royal Society. Robert Beverley's (1673-1722) History and Present State of Virginia (London, 1705) directly reproduced extensive passages on natural history & Indians from manuscripts of Banister, as did John Oldmixon (1673-1742) in The British Empire in America (1708).
Banister had sent many seeds & plants back to Bishop Compton; John Ray (1628-1705) published Banister's list of plants & added several new species to his own lists in Historia Plantarum: Species Hactenus Editas (1686–1704). Martin Lister (1602-1670) published extracts of Banister letters in the Royal Society's Philosophical Transactions in 1693.
Banister's original catalog is now in the British Library, & many of his specimens are in the British Library & in the Sherardian Herbarium at Oxford University. Noted naturalists such as Johann Jacob Dillenius (1684-1747), Martin Lister, James Petiver, & Leonard Plukenet (1641–1706) made extensive use of Banister's collections, some even crediting him with his discoveries. Petiver employed Banister's notes on fungi in editions of his Gazophylacii Naturae & Artis (1702–1709). Petiver & André Michaux (1746-1802) named plants for Banister; & William Houstoun gave the name Banisteria to a whole class of tropical & subtropical viny plants, one of which Banister had described as the "Wilde Hop-seed in Barbadoes." When Carolus Linnaeus visited England in 1736, he studied the collections of plants at the Oxford & Chelsea Physick Gardens, both of which contained many of Banister's specimens. In preparing the 1753 edition of his Species Plantarum, Linnaeus cited the works of Morison, Plukenet, & Ray for many of the species & specimens that Banister actually had procured & described. Linnaeus recorded a list of Banisteria on the flyleaf of his own copy of Plukenet's Phytographia (1691–1705).
Banister sent numerous occasional papers to the Royal Society that were published in its Philosophical Transactions, providing "the first scientific account for Virginia in the field of descriptive botany, entomology, and malacology." His letter describing Mutinus elegans, a stinkhorn, was probably the 1st report of a fungus from North America. Among them was "A Description of the Snakeroot, Pistolochia or Serpentaria Virginiania." He compiled a catalogue of American plants, the 1st flora of North America, published in the 2nd volume of John Ray's Historia Plantarum (London, 1688-1704), a catalog of plant taxonomy.
See
Ewan, Joseph and Nesta Ewan (1992). "John Banister, Virginia's First Naturalist," Banisteria, Number 1.
Ewan, Joseph and Nesta Ewan (1970). John Banister and His Natural History of Virginia 1678-1692 University of Illinois Press.
Lewis, Ivey F. (1958). "Seventeenth Century Science in Old Virginia." Virginia Journal of Science, V8(1).
Petersen, Ronald H. (2001). New World Botany: Columbus to Darwin.
