American surgeon and botanist in Georgia and Pennsylvania. William Baldwin collected throughout his life at home and while travelling in Latin America on a U.S. frigate. Born in Newlin, Pennsylvania where his father was a minister of the Society of Friends, the young Baldwin was a keen student and soon began to teach in the local area. Receiving lessons in medicine from a local doctor, W.A. Todd, he entered the University of Pennsylvania aged 23 and undertook a year of lectures, before returning to Downington and his studies with Dr. Todd. It was here that he met Moses Marshall, nephew of eminent botanist Humphrey Marshall, who nurtured his interest in botany.
In 1805 Baldwin took an appointment as surgeon on a merchant ship to Canton (Guangdong) in China, and returned the following year to complete his medical studies at the University of Pennsylvania, receiving his medical doctorate in 1807. Baldwin began to practise in Wilmington, Delaware, and soon married Hannah M. Webster of the same city. Taking the time to become acquainted with the local flora he moved to Savannah, Georgia, in 1811, in search of a milder climate to ease his recurring pulmonary illness. In this state Baldwin continued to botanise, undertaking considerable excursions into the interior of the state and befriending the Creek Indians of the region. In 1812 he was posted as a naval surgeon in St. Mary's, Georgia, and here his wife helped tend to the soldiers injured in the war against Britain, but he never abandoned his botanical studies.
In 1817 Baldwin was named surgeon on the U.S. frigate Congress bound for Buenos Aires and took every opportunity to gather plant specimens while moored at Rio de Janeiro, Montevideo, Buenos Aires, Maldonado, San Salvador and Margarita. Returning to Wilmington in 1818 Baldwin set to work organising his manuscripts into his "Miscellaneous Sketches of Georgia and East Florida", although ultimately his ill health would prevent this from being published. In 1819 Baldwin departed on what would be his final journey, to work as a naturalist on Major S.H. Long's expedition to upper Missouri (The Yellowstone Expedition). His health, by that time, was ailing, and the group had to pause at Cincinnati to allow him to regain some strength. By the time the party reached Franklin in Missouri Baldwin knew he could not continue and died shortly afterwards in the house of a kindly associate, leaving behind him four young children.
His work as a field botanist is well recognised, although Baldwin published little during his short life. Interested particularly in the Cyperaceae family and certain grass genera he produced two published works, an account of two species of Rottboellia L. (Poaceae) and an account of one Cyperus L. and four Kyllingia L. (Cyperaceae) species, both in 1919. These were later used in Asa Gray's Rhynchospora and John Torrey's Cyperaceae monographs. His collection was bought by Collins, sold to De Schweinitz and bequeathed to the Philadelphia Academy of Sciences.
Sources:
J.W. Harshberger, 1899, Botanists of Philadelphia: 119-125
H.B. Humphrey, 1961, The Makers of North American Botany: 15-16.
