Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 60.djvu/249

 Christian Faith and Practice,’ London, 1724, 8vo, with a portrait prefixed.

[Appleton's Cyclop. of American Biogr.; Notes and Queries, 4th ser. vi. 75; Malcolm's Londinium Redivivum, 1807, iv. 446; Venn's Biogr. Hist. of Gonville and Caius College, 1897, i. 484; Lathbury's Hist. of the Nonjurors, 1845, pp. 252, 256–7; Notes and Queries, 9th ser. iv. 434; Nichols's Lit. Anecd. i. 397, viii. 369; Nichols's Lit. Illustr. iv. 421; Hawks's Contributions to the Eccles. Hist. of the United States, 1839, ii. 183; Life and Times of Kettlewell, ed. Carter, 1895, p. 266; Welton's Church Ornament without Idolatry vindicated in a sermon, 1714; Welton's Clergy's Tears; Howard's Judas Redivivus, 1715; Solomon against Welton; Welton's Church distinguished from a Conventicle; The Conventicle distinguished from the Church, in answer to Dr. Welton, 1718; The Case of not taking the Oaths, 1717; The Nonjuror Unmask'd, 1718. A collection of contemporary pamphlets and news-sheets relating to the Whitechapel altar-piece is in the British Museum library (1418, k 34).]  WELWITSCH, FRIEDRICH MARTIN JOSEF (1807–1872), botanist, was born at Maria-Saal, near Klagenfurt, Carinthia, on 5 Feb. 1807, being one of the large family of a well-to-do farmer and surveyor. While at school he was encouraged by his father in the study of botany, and when sent to the university of Vienna with a view to the legal profession, he was so devoted to the study of natural history as to make no progress in the study of the law. His father thereupon withdrew his allowance; but Welwitsch supported himself by writing dramatic criticisms, and entered the medical faculty of the university. In 1834 he gained a prize offered by the mayor of Vienna by his ‘Beiträge zur cryptogamischen Flora Unter-Oesterreichs,’ and his appointment about the same time to report on the cholera in Carinthia reconciled his father to his new profession. After travelling as tutor to a nobleman, he returned to Vienna, and graduated M.D. in 1836, his thesis being a ‘Synopsis Nostochinearum Austriæ inferioris.’ He spent much of his time in the botanical museum at Vienna, and became intimate with Fenzl and other botanists; and when, in 1839, an act of youthful indiscretion rendered it expedient for him to leave Austria, he accepted a commission from the Unio Itineraria of Würtemberg to collect the plants of the Azores and Cape de Verde Islands, and with this object came to England, whence he sailed to Lisbon. He learnt Portuguese in six weeks, and, becoming attached to Portugal, never left that country till 1853, except for short visits to Paris and London. During these years he had charge of the botanical gardens at Lisbon and Coimbra, and of those of the Duke of Palmella at Cintra, Alemtejo, and elsewhere. He explored most of Portugal, forming a herbarium of nine thousand species, fully represented by specimens in all stages of growth, with descriptive notes and synonymy, sending eleven thousand specimens to the Unio Itineraria, and depositing sets with the academies of Lisbon and Paris. In 1841 Welwitsch had a three days' excursion to the Valle de Zebro with Robert Brown (1773–1858) [q. v.]; and in 1847 and 1848 with Count Descayrac he explored the southern province of Algarve, then little known to botanists. Between 1847 and 1852 he added 250 species of the larger fungi to those enumerated in Brotero's ‘Flora’ from the neighbourhood of Lisbon, while in his zeal for algæ (of which in 1850 he published a list in the second volume of the ‘Actas’ of the Lisbon Academy) he spent hours day after day up to his waist in water. In 1851 he sent twelve thousand specimens of flowering plants and six thousand cryptogams to England for sale; and, while the fungi and mosses collected by him were described by Miles Joseph Berkeley and Mr. Mitten in 1853, his own last contribution to science was a paper in the ‘Journal of Botany’ for 1872, dealing with the mosses of Portugal. He also studied and collected mollusks and insects, especially Coleoptera and Hymenoptera, and in 1844 was one of the founders of the Horticultural Society of Lisbon. In 1851 Welwitsch was engaged to prepare the Portuguese collections for the Great Exhibition, and accompanied them to London, where he took counsel with Robert Brown and others as to the exploration of Portuguese West Africa, for which he had been chosen by the government of his adopted country. He started from Lisbon on this seven years' journey in August 1853, visited Madeira, the Cape Verde Islands and Freetown, Sierra Leone, where he spent nine days in making his first acquaintance with tropical vegetation, and reached Loanda in October. Nearly a year was devoted to the exploration of the coast zone from the mouth of the Quizembo, 8°15′ S. lat., to that of the Cuanza, 9°20′ S. He had been given 270l. for his scientific outfit and voyage, and was paid 45l. a month; but finding that bearers and other expenses of his excursions far exceeded this allowance, he sent large collections of insects, seeds, living plants, and dried specimens to England for sale. In September 1854 Welwitsch ascended the river Bengo to Sange