The First and Seconde Partes of the Herbal of William Turner, Doctor in Phisick, lately Oversene, Corrected and Enlarged with the Thirde Parte. Printed in Cologne by Arnold Birckman, 1568. Lower Libary, L.28.9

William Turner (c.1509–1568) was an English clergyman, physician and natural historian who has been described as the father of English botany. He spent much of his leisure time in the careful study of plants in their native habitat and described them with an accuracy previously unknown in England. Like John Caius, he both studied medicine in Italy and was a friend of the great Swiss naturalist, Conrad Gessner. Indeed, both were thanked by Gessner in the fourth volume of Historia animalium as donors of information.

This volume revises, combines and adds a third and final part to two of Turner’s earlier publications from 1551 and 1562 respectively. These volumes gave the first clear, systematic survey of English plants, and their numerous detailed woodcuts – mainly taken from Leonhart Fuchs's De historia stirpium commentarii insignes (1542) – together with Turner’s detailed observations, made this a landmark work in the history of herbals. Moreover, Turner included an account of each plant’s ‘uses and vertues’ and thus, for the first time, a herbal was available in England in the vernacular, prompting him to write in his preface that some will accuse him of divulging to the general public what should have been reserved for a professional audience.

This book was bequeathed to the Library by Sir James Burrough Miles, Master of Gonville and Caius from 1754 to 1764.

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