American businessman, philanthropist and botanist in Wilmington, Delaware. William Marriott Canby undertook several successful business ventures and used the profits to fund his extensive travels through North America, collecting plants for his personal herbarium from about 1858. Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, he was educated at the Friends School at Westtown in the same state. From 1880 until his death Canby was president of the Wilmington Savings Fund Trust and was also a trustee of the Union Bank, director of the Delaware Fire Insurance Company and a founder of the Delaware Western Railroad. This later became the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad System and at the time of his death Canby was director of one branch of this system. Very active in the Wilmington community, Canby's philanthropic activities included directing the Wilmington Fountain Society (which provided people and animals with water throughout the town), presiding over the Wilmington Institute (a precursor to the public library) and, from 1888, presiding over the city's Associated Charities. He was also the first president of the Board of Park Commissioners for that city, a board his son Henry M. Canby would later work on (1913-1928). In honour of father and son, Southwest Park in Wilmington was renamed Canby Park in around 1930.

As a botanist Canby did not publish extensively, save some papers in the Botanical Gazette, but his collecting trips spanned much of the northern and eastern states and he became quite an expert on the plant life of Delaware and Maryland. By 1893 he had amassed a collection of 30,000 specimens which he sold in that year to the New York College of Pharmacy, before immediately embarking upon the collection of a second herbarium which would number some 15,000 specimens and was donated to the Natural History Society of Delaware. Although Canby did not describe a large number of new plants, in passing on his observations to other researchers a great many new species names were published. Canby also allowed free access to his herbarium for others to complete monographic work. Some of his most important expeditions include his participation on the Northern Transcontinental Survey, a trip funded by the Northern Pacific Railway to explore the areas through which it passed. On this trip he served as head of the Division of Economic Botany (1882-1883). In 1898 he accompanied John Muir and Charles Sprague Sargent on a journey to the Appalachians and in 1902 also worked with Muir when the pair visited Alaska.

Canby took a particular interest in the carnivorous plants, studying venus fly traps (Dionaea Sol. ex J. Ellis) and pitcher plants (Darlingtonia Torr.) His knowledge in this field was so extensive that Charles Darwin, with whom he was in correspondence, referenced his work several times in his book on the subject and held Canby in high renown. Darwin referred to him as Dr. Canby in all of his letters, although it seems he was never awarded a degree. J.N. Rose, who published Canby's obituary in the Botanical Gazette, recalls Canby stating that he was once offered an honorary PhD by one American college, but that he declined it. An array of species epithets now bear homage to Canby's botanical reputation, including Canby's mountain-lover (Paxistima canbyi), named for him by Asa Gray, the grass Poa canbyi (Scribn.) Howell and an oak, Quercus canbyi Trel.

Sources:
J.N. Rose, 1904, "William M. Canby", Botanical Gazette, 37(5): 385-387
S.M. Chase, 2002, "William M. Canby: Businessman, philanthropist, botanist", Friends of Wilmington Parks:
http://www.friendsofwilmingtonparks.org/summer02.pdf, accessed 16 March 2011.