Mr James Britten (3 May 1846–8 October 1924)

British botanist and Roman Catholic propagandist. Britten was born in Chelsea, London and privately educated. His lifelong interest in plants led to him abandon a prospective career in medicine and in 1869 he started as a junior assistant in the herbarium at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew. In 1871 he joined the Department of Botany at the British Museum, and in 1880 was promoted to 1st class assistant, retiring in 1909. In 1879 he succeeded Henry Trimen as editor of the Journal of Botany, which he continued for 45 years until his death. Britten published work on European ferns and A Dictionary of English Plant Names (1878-81), and A Biographical Index of British and Irish Botanists (1891). In 1892 his reprint of Turner's 1549 The Names of Herbes was published. He also published work on the Australian plants collected by Sir Joseph Banks and Dr Daniel Solander during Captain Cooke's voyage (1900-05). By the time of his death, Britten was a well-known Catholic layman who had revived the Catholic Truth Society, for which he served as hon. Secretary until 1922 and subsequently became its vice-president. Britten wrote much of the society's controversial literature, including a volume entitled Protestant Fictions and a pamphlet, Why I Left the Church of England. He died suddenly at home in Brentford, West London, aged 78.