Biography

British botanist Maxwell Masters was for many years the editor of the Gardeners' Chronicle. Born in Kent, Masters inherited an interest in plants from his father, a nurseryman in Canterbury. Masters' father later became alderman and mayor of the city, and founded Canterbury Museum in 1823.

Masters studied medicine at King's College Hospital in the 1850s and graduated MD from the University of St. Andrews in absentia in 1862. While in London he attended lectures at the Chelsea Physic Garden and served as subcurator of the Fielding Herbarium at the University of Oxford. For a few years he engaged in general medical practice in Peckham, meanwhile giving lectures on botany at the London and Royal Institutions and at St. George's Hospital medical school (between 1855 and 1868). He married Ellen Anne Ruck in 1858, with whom he would have four children.

Apart from editing the Gardeners' Chronicle from 1865 until his death, Masters' best known works were Vegetable Teratology (1869) and his descriptions of new Chinese plants collected by E.H. Wilson. He also wrote about conifers and prepared a monograph on the Restionaceae family, plus treatments of the Passifloraceae and Aristolochiaceae for Flora Brasiliensis (1872-1876).

Masters' main interest from the 1860s onwards was horticulture and the Gardeners' Chronicle enjoyed a high standard of contributions under his leadership, with eminent botanists writing on a variety of topics. He also acted as secretary to, and edited the proceedings resulting from the International Horticultural Congress of 1866, the profits from which went on purchasing John Lindley's library for the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS). Masters succeeded Joseph Dalton Hooker as chair of the RHS scientific committee. He was elected a Fellow of the Linnean Society in 1860 and of the Royal Society in 1870. The genera Mastersia Benth. and Mastersiella Gilg-Ben., and species including the larch Larix mastersiana Rehder & E.H.Wilson, commemorate him, as does the annual Masters Memorial Lecture hosted by the RHS.

Sources:
Anon., 1907, British Medical Journal, June 8, 1907, 1(2423): 1401
G.S. Boulger, 2004, "Masters, Maxwell Tylden (1833-1907)", rev. W.T. Stearn, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, online edn:
www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/34928, accessed 23 January 2012
W.B. Hemsley, 1907, "Botanical works of the late Dr Masters", Gardeners' Chronicle, 3rd ser., 41: 377-378, 398, 418-419
W.B. Hemsley, 1907, Kew Bulletin of Miscellaneous Information, 1907: 325-334
B.D.J., 1908, Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London, 120: 54-56.