Templeton, John (1766–1825), naturalist and philanthropist, was born at Bridge St., Belfast, son of James Templeton, a prosperous wholesale merchant, and his wife Mary Eleanor, daughter of Benjamin Legg of Belfast and Malone.
Background and education The Templeton family were probably followers in the train of the English settlers in Ireland in the reign of James I, and they came to reside in Bridge St. early in the seventeenth century. John Templeton had at least one sister. A delicate child, he spent much of his time reading and was particularly attracted to books on natural history, a topic that became a lifelong passion. He copied the drawings of birds and fish and thereby developed essential skills in observation and recording. He went fishing and fowling as a child, but eventually gave up after seeing the suffering of a wounded bird. This benevolence to animals and humans was a characteristic trait.
Until the age of 16 he attended the school of the educational pioneer David Manson (qv). Popular with the Belfast presbyterian merchant class, the innovative coeducational school combined lessons with play and eschewed corporal punishment. Templeton counted among his schoolfellows the Joys and McCrackens, and maintained a warm friendship with them throughout his life. His sister Eliza was a close friend of Mary Ann McCracken (qv), who was later bridesmaid at his wedding. The families shared a liberal political and cultural philosophy, which led to more radical political actions for some of them during the 1790s. After his father's death (1790) John moved to the family's country residence, Orange Grove, Malone, so called because William of Orange (qv) was entertained there by a previous owner, John Eccles, as he passed by on his way from Carrickfergus to the Boyne in 1690.
A developing naturalist The extent of Templeton's involvement in the family business is unknown. The business may have been wound up at some stage, as there is no record of the Templeton name in directories of Belfast merchants for 1807–8. However, it appears that his substantial means allowed him to devote a large amount of time to natural history and other interests. By the age of 20 (1786) he began developing the garden of Orange Grove, planting rare and exotic flowers, trees, and shrubs. Through the necessity to control weeds, his interest in botany became more scientific and he became familiar with the Linnaean classification system. Largely working alone in Belfast, he did make several visits to London, which allowed him to meet many of the prominent botanists and plantsmen of the time, including Professor Thomas Martyn of Cambridge (to whom he furnished remarks on the cultivation of plants for his edition of Philip Miller's botanical dictionary) and James Edward Smith (1759–1828), founder and president of the Linnean Society, who held him in high esteem. Templeton later (1794) became an associate of the Linnean Society. His reputation as a botanist drew an invitation (1796) from the naturalist Sir Joseph Banks, president of the Royal Society, who offered him a substantial salary (£300–400) and a large tract of land if he went to Australia to botanise on behalf of the Royal Society. His strong attachment to his family and place of birth precluded his acceptance. By 1798 he had laid out an experimental garden at Orange Grove, with plants from India, China, the Americas, and Asia. Seeds arrived by post from other botanists. Tree-of-Heaven (Chinese sumac), Ailanthus altissima, and Camellia japonica were grown out of doors in Ireland for the first time. He was an early advocate (from 1809) of a botanic garden for Belfast, which unfortunately did not come to pass until after his death.
A pioneering naturalist, he was the one of the first serious workers to observe the flora and fauna of the north-east of Ireland, resulting in some of the earliest findings of many rare plants, including flowering plants, fungi, lichens, mosses, and algae. He also had a strong interest in ornithology and marine biology. From about 1793, he spent part of each summer travelling on field excursions, mostly in the north of Ireland and accompanied by a group of family, friends, or visiting botanists. He explored various areas of the province with, among others, Lord Clanbrassil, Dr Whitley Stokes (qv), and James T. Mackay (qv), superintendent of the TCD botanic gardens, and his friend William Tennent (qv). He frequently went to the Giant's Causeway and over time explored most of Ulster. On one prolonged trip he travelled via the Antrim coast, Donegal, and Sligo to Dublin, from where he examined the mountains and valleys of Wicklow. He made a short tour of Scotland with Maj.-gen. Henry McKinnon (1773–1812), with whom he was very friendly. McKinnon was brigade-major to Maj.-gen. George Nugent (1757–1849) during the 1798 uprising in Belfast. By 1800 it was said that Templeton's knowledge of natural history equalled that of anyone in Europe (Praeger (1949)).
Manuscripts and records Interested in all aspects of natural history, he kept meticulous records of his observations. His written notes were supplemented by beautifully detailed drawings and watercolour paintings of native plants, birds, fish, and invertebrates, and he corresponded with experts in a number of fields including zoology, geology, and chemistry. Some of his first published notes comprised his observations on birds and soils, sent to the Linnaean Society (1795). He read a paper, ‘On the naturalization of plants’, to the RIA (1799), which was later published (1802). One of the best known of his many discoveries of new species and new Irish records was Rosa x hibernica, the Irish rose (often called ‘the Templeton rose’), which he first found (c.1795) in the vicinity of Belfast. He sent the rose to the Dublin Society (1802), published a note in the society's Transactions (1803), and was awarded five guineas, which the society was offering for the discovery of new native plants. He also discovered the parasitic plant Red (thyme) broomrape, Orobanche rubra (latterly Orobanche alba), on Cave Hill (1805) and a number of new records for cryptogamic plants. He systematically compiled records of plants he came across into a manuscript volume entitled ‘Catalogue of the native plants of Ireland observed by John Templeton’ (1794–1810). In 1821 he published a paper, ‘On the formation of bogs’ (Transactions of the Geological Society, v, 606–9).
At that time there was little published material on regional floras in Ireland. He began collecting material for a ‘Flora Hibernica’, and through his communications with other botanists, many of his discoveries were included in their publications; Lewis Weston Dillwyn's Natural history of British confervae (1802–9); Plantae rariores in Hibernia inventae (1804), by Walter Wade (qv); Muscologia Britannica (1818) by William Hooker and Thomas Taylor; Muscologie Hibernicae spicilegium (1804) by Dawson Turner (who acknowledged his obligation to Templeton); Fuci (1808–19), also by Turner; and the series by James Edward Smith and James Sowerby, English botany (1790–1814). Several of these botanists travelled to Ulster and went on field excursions with Templeton.
Though most of his work was never published, his manuscripts provided a rich source of material to other naturalists after his death. George Dickie (qv) consulted Templeton's ‘Catalogue’ in preparation for his Flora of Ulster (1864), as did Samuel A. Stewart (qv) and Thomas Corry (d. 1883) when compiling A flora of the north-east of Ireland (1888). Stewart acknowledged the extent of Templeton's contribution to botany in Ireland and used an illustration of Rosa Hibernica on the front cover. The ‘Catalogue’ was lent to A. G. More (qv) when he was editing the second edition of Cybele Hibernica, on condition it was placed afterwards in the library of the RIA, where it is held. What survives of his other manuscripts, including ‘Flora Hibernica’ (6 vols; now a skeletal volume with some parts missing), ‘Hibernian zoology’ (contains many coloured drawings of birds and fish), and the detailed journal he kept (13 bound vols, 1806–25), are held in the Ulster Museum, after being held in the RIA for the first half of the twentieth century. The flora and faunal manuscripts were also part of the preparation of ‘A natural history of Ireland’, which Templeton was working on but never completed. A further part of the ‘Flora’ with over 300 coloured drawings of fungi and lichens is held in the department of botany, British Museum of Natural History. These were donated to the museum by Dr Howard Kelly, an American surgeon and collector, who felt the drawings should be returned to Britain, where they could be studied and appreciated, bringing more credit to the author. After Templeton's death his son Robert prepared some of the zoological manuscript notes for publication, which allowed access to new Irish material. These included ‘A catalogue of the species of annulose animals and of rayed ones found in Ireland as selected from the papers of the late J. Templeton, esq., of Cranmore with localities, descriptions and illustrations’ (Magazine of Natural History, ix (1836), 233–40; 301–5; 417–21; 466–72-14), which is an account of marine and land worms, starfish, sea-urchins, brittle-stars and sea-cucumbers, parasitic and intestinal worms, jellyfish, sea-anemones, hydroids and sea-pens. Another paper, ‘A catalogue of Irish Crustacea, Myriapoda and Arachnoida selected from the papers of the late John Templeton, esq.’ (Magazine of Natural History, ix (1836), 9–14), gives an annotated list of these arthropods. These were some of the first papers on Irish invertebrates and many of his recorded observations were included in the invertebrate section of Natural history of Ireland, iv (1856), by William Thompson (qv) (d. 1852). Some of his findings on invertebrates were later published in the Irish Naturalist.
Philanthropist and patriot His interests were broad and included more than just natural history. Entries into his journal covered a variety of topics outside of science, on matters social, educational, and philosophical. He was part of the merchant and professional class of Belfast society which embraced all aspects of cultural life and wished to promote knowledge and intellectual progress among the inhabitants of the city. He was a member of the Belfast Natural History Society (first hon. member, 1821) and the Belfast Literary Society (vice-president, 1803) and was an active participant in the liberal and radical debates of the Belfast Historical Society. Also involved in the Belfast Society for Promoting Knowledge (known as the Linen Hall Library from 1802), he became curator of its museum of natural history and curiosities (1792). An influential voice in the society's development, he was responsible for establishing its book collection policy, which remained non-sectarian and apolitical for the following seventy years. He donated many books to the society from his own collection. Anxious to share his own particular knowledge, he contributed bi-monthly columns on nature and meteorology to the Belfast Monthly Magazine (1808–14), a publication which he co-founded with William Drennan (qv) and John Hancock (qv). With these two men he was also involved (from 1807) in the founding of the Belfast Academical Institution (1814), a collegiate school based on non-denominational principles, and was a member of its board of visitors.
A patriot, he believed that Ireland had as much potential as any other country. After the death of his father, he changed the name of Orange Grove to Cranmore (crann mór, ‘great tree’), after the large tree in front of the house. Like many of his liberal presbyterian peers, he supported catholic emancipation and parliamentary reform and was an opponent of the union. Though he was sympathetic to the aims of the United Irishmen, it was only after much deliberation that he eventually joined the Society of United Irishmen in 1797 during the imprisonment of his friend Thomas Russell (qv). The move from his usual apolitical stance came as a great surprise to his more radical friends. Russell was a close friend and the two shared many interests; they made several forays together into the Mourne mountains, making observations on geology and botany, and corresponded regularly during Russell's imprisonment. Although somewhat disillusioned with the rise in sectarianism that accompanied the 1798 rebellion, Templeton remained a strenuous advocate of civil and religious liberty.
Comfortably off, he enjoyed a rich social life and loved music, theatre, and public events. Extending his philanthropy to music, he subscribed to the Belfast Harp Society, founded to teach harp music to blind children. Keen to preserve the ancient music and instruments of Ireland, he helped Edward Bunting (qv) to collect and publish Ancient Irish airs (1796). He had a genuine interest in innovation and experiment, and sponsored and attended lectures on a variety of scientific and philosophical subjects, usually organised for the benefit of the working public. A very modest and unassuming man, he took great delight in the discoveries of others, and was always ready to communicate his own findings. He was seen as a generous and kind friend to many. He was also a religious man who believed in the power of God in relation to natural phenomena. Templeton, never of strong constitution, died 15 December 1825 in Belfast, aged 59, and was buried in Clifton St. cemetery.
He married (21 December 1799) Katherine, daughter of Robert Johnston, a prosperous linen bleacher from Seymour Hill, Belfast. She died (1868) at Cranmore, aged 95. Her brother-in-law, Henry Monro (qv), commander of the United Irish army of Down, was charged with treason and rebellion and hanged (1798). Templeton and his wife had one son and four daughters. His son Robert Templeton (qv), a renowned naturalist and entomologist, was surgeon-major with the Royal Artillery and served in (among other places) Mauritius, Rio de Janeiro, Ceylon, and the Crimea. His daughter Mary married James Grimshaw, grandson of Nicholas Grimshaw (qv).
Legacy Though he did not publish much, Templeton is one of the most important names in the early history of botany in Ulster. R. L. Praeger (qv) described him as ‘an outstanding botanist’ (1938) and ‘the most eminent naturalist Ireland has produced’ (1949). William Hooker and Robert Brown (1773–1858), notable botanists who had visited Templeton in Ulster, named plants after him; the moss Entosthodon templetoni (now Funaria templetoni) (Hooker) and the genus Templetoni (Brown), a leguminous Australian shrub. Brown had previously taken up Joseph Banks's offer to Templeton of a job in Australia. After Templeton's death Cranmore House eventually passed into the possession of the RBAI. In 2002 the Environment and Heritage Service of the Department of the Environment in Northern Ireland completed the conservation of the house, which stands in the Institution's playing fields, off Malone Road, south Belfast. It is one of the earliest surviving houses in the Belfast area, having being built in the seventeenth century.