Lady Charlotte Murray

Lady Charlotte Murray (2 August 1754 – 4 April 1808) was a Scottish botanist and author. She was the eldest child of John Murray, 3rd Duke of Atholl, and Charlotte Murray, Duchess of Atholl. Her paternal grandfather was the Jacobite general Lord George Murray while her maternal grandfather was the Hanoverian James Murray, 2nd Duke of Atholl.

Lady Charlotte Murray
Born	(1754-08-02)2 August 1754 Dunkeld, Scotland
Died	4 April 1808(1808-04-04) (aged 53) Bath, Somerset, England
Resting place	Bath Abbey
Occupation	Botany
Known for	Geranium pratense
Notable work	The British Garden

She is best known for her two-volume work The British Garden, which ran to two or three editions in her lifetime, the second (and possibly the first)^[1] being in 1799, and the third in 1805 or 1808,^[2] and another in 1880.^[3] The book was targeted at young people and considered the Linnaean system and how it can be used to discover the name of an unknown plant.^[4]

She also produced numerous botanical illustrations.^[5]

In 1793, Lady Charlotte discovered a double variety of Geranium pratense which she sent to Lady Banks.^[6]

She died in Bath on 4 April 1808, unmarried. She was buried in Bath Abbey.^[7]

Works

• Murray, Charlotte (c. 1799). A Descriptive Catalogue of Hardy Plants, Indigenous Or Cultivated in the Climate of Great Britain; with Their Generic and Specific Characters, Latin and English Names, Native Country, and Time of Flowering.

References

1. Shteir, Ann B. (1996). Cultivating women, cultivating science: Flora's daughters and botany in England, 1760-1860. Johns Hopkins University Press. p. 67. ISBN 978-0801861758.
2. Lady Charlotte Murray The British Garden: A Descriptive Catalogue of Hardy Plants, Indigenous Or cultivated in the climate of Great Britain Vol.1 (1808) , p. 48, at Google Books
3. George, Samantha (2007). Botany, Sexuality and Women's Writing, 1760-1830: From Modest Shoot to Forward Plant. Manchester University Press. p. 100. ISBN 978-0719088452.
4. Ogilvie, Marilyn; Harvey, Joy (16 December 2003). The Biographical Dictionary of Women in Science: Pioneering Lives From Ancient Times to the Mid-20th Century. Routledge. ISBN 9781135963439.
5. Noltie, H. J. (30 September 2019). "A Scottish daughter of Flora: Lady Charlotte Murray and her herbarium portabile". Archives of Natural History. 46 (2): 298–317. doi:10.3366/anh.2019.0592. S2CID 208599648.
6. Sowerby, James (1797). English Botany. Vol. 6.
7. Ewan, Elizabeth L.; Innes, Sue; Reynolds, Sian; et al., eds. (2007). The Biographical Dictionary of Scottish Women. Edinburgh University Press. p. 277. ISBN 978-0748632930.

External links

• 1808 edition, Volume 1