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  to giving up his farm within two years of his son's birth, came to live in Manchester as a labourer. As a child his education was almost entirely neglected, but his chief amusement was picking wild flowers in the fields and brickyards near Great Ancoats. At twelve he was apprenticed to a bat-maker—that is, a manufacturer of children's small leather shoes. When sixteen he determined to teach himself to read, and did so. Among his books he numbered some of the old herbalists, but found their indications quite inadequate to find out plant-names. He then fell in with Jenkinson's Flora, also Robson's, and the first edition of Withering. For several years he plodded on, without making any botanical friends; but in 1826 he encountered a kindred spirit in the person of John Horsefield, another of the keen Lancashire working-men botanists, who introduced Buxton to their meetings. He afterwards botanised in Derbyshire, North Wales, and the Craven district of Yorkshire. When his ‘Botanical Guide’ was published, and for many years afterwards, he was living unmarried with a sister in Manchester, where he died on 2 Jan. 1865. He published only one book, entitled ‘Botanical Guide to the Flowering Plants, Ferns, Mosses, and Algæ found … within 16 miles of Manchester,’ Lond. 1849 (2nd ed. 1859); but he is frequently cited by Dr. Wood in his ‘Flora Mancuniensis’ as the authority for many localities of the rarer plants.

 BUXTON, THOMAS FOWELL (1786–1845), philanthropist, was the eldest son of Thomas Fowell Buxton, of Earl's Colne, Essex, by a daughter of Osgood Hanbury, of Holfield Grange, in the same county. His mother, who was a member of the Society Friends, was a woman of great intelligence and energy. He was born 1 April 1786, and at a very early age was sent to a school at Kingston, where he suffered severely from illtreatment. His health gave way, and he was removed to Greenwich, and placed under the care of Dr.Burney, the brother of Madame d'Arblay. From his earliest youth he took great delight in all kinds of country sports.

At the age of fifteen be left school, and was thrown much into the society of the Gurneys, at Earlham Hall, Norwich. In October 1803 he was entered at Trinity College, Dublin. He passed all the thirteen examinations at Dublin (with a single exception) with the most distinguished success, and received the university gold medal, which is given only to previous prizes. Before he had attained the age of twnty-one he was pressed to stand as a candidate for the representation of the university He was extremely gratified by the offer, but declined it in consideration of his impending marriage to Hannah, daughter of Mr. John Gurney, of Earlham Hall sister to Mrs. Fly, and of the business career for which he was intended. He returned to England, and his marriage took place on 13 May 1807.

Buxton joined the well-known firm of Truman, Hanbury, & Co, brewers, of Spitalfields, in 1808, Though his business engagements were very arduous, he found time to study English literature and political economy. Nor did he neglect those philanthropic efforts which bad been pressed upon him by his mother, and in which he was encouraged by William Allen. Between 1808 and 1816 he interested himself in all the charitable undertakings in the distressed district of Spitalfields, especiallv in those connected with education, the Bible Society, and the sufferings of the weavers. He took an energetic part in defending the Bible Society when it was the subject of a violent controversy, initiated by Dr. Marsh, afterwards bishop of Peterborough.

In 1816 almost the whole population in Spitalfields was on the verge of starvation. A meeting was called at the Mansion House, and Buxton delivered a forcible speech. He narrated the results of his personal investigations; the sum of 43,369/. was raised at this one meeting, and an extensive and well-organised system of relief was established. Buxton joined the committee of the newly formed Society for the Reformation of Prison Discipline. He had previously gone through the gaol at Newgate, and the results of this and other visitations were afterwards collected and published in a volume, entitled An Inquiry whether Crime and Misery are produced or prevented by our present system of Prison Discipline (London, 1818). In the course of one year this work went through five large editions, and it had led to the formation of the Prison Discipline Society already mentioned. In the House of Commons, Sir James Mackintosh spoke highly of the book, which was translated into French, distributed over the continent, and reached India. There it indirectly led to a searching inquiry into the scandalous management of the Madras gaols.

In 1818 Buxton was returned to parliament at the head of the poll for Weymouth, and continued to represent the borough until 1837. He also devoted himself at this time to the preparation of a work on prison 