Who is T. Sheldrake?

Timothy Sheldrake was a medical doctor and botanist who lived from 1691 to 1759. ^[1] Sheldrake also used the name forms “T Sheldrake”, “Sheldrake, Timothy”, and “Sheldrake, Timothy”. ^[2] Sheldrake is most known for his grand work Botanicum Medicinale; An Herbal of Medicinal Plants on the College of Physicians List.

Background

“SHELDRAKE, TIMOTHY (fl. 1756), M.D., a native of Norwich, was descended from an old Norfolk family, a member of which, John Sheldrake, was mayor of Thetford in 1632, while William Sheldrake was rector of Barton in Charles II’s reign. Timothy was author of:

‘The Causes of Heat and Cold in all Climates, as read to the Royal Society,’ 1756, 8vo, ‘printed for and sold by the Author at the Black Boy in the Strand,’ pp. 42.
‘The Gardener’s Best Companion in a Greenhouse, or Tables showing the greatest Heat and Cold of all Countries … measured upon the Thermometer,’ London, 1756, folio, a quadruple folding folio-sheet, dedicated to Sir Hans Sloane, and stated to have the approval of Philip Miller [q. v.]
‘Botanicum Medicinale; an Herbal of Medicinal Plants on the College of Physicians’ List, with names in nine languages [and] 120 copper-plates, “from the exquisite drawings of the late ingenious T. Sheldrake,”’ London, 1759, folio. This work was issued at 3l. plain, and at 6l. coloured. Most of the plates are engraved by C. H. Hemerich. The ‘Gardener’s Best Companion’ is added to it. A pamphlet on ‘Norwich Gothic Cross’ (with ‘a very good plate’), by the same author, is advertised in ‘The Causes of Heat and Cold’ (cf. Blomfield, Norfolk, iv. 235).

“Sheldrake was doubtless related to the Timothy Sheldrake [Jr.] ‘of the Strand, truss-maker to the East India Company and the Westminster Hospital,’ who between 1783 and 1806 published several medical pamphlets on distortion of the spine, club-foot, and rupture.^[3]

“[Biographical Dict. of Living Authors, 1816, and the works above mentioned.]”^[4]^[5]^[6]

“Sheldrake had trained in Norwich in the family saddlery business, but then took over an adjacent distillery, for which he studied botany and chemistry. When this career was cut short by the Gin Act 1736, which restricted the sale of spirits, he wrote to Hans Sloane seeking advice, and sometime after that he moved with his family to London. There he seems to have devoted much time to his herbal, which was originally intended to comprise 400 plates. His chart, The Gardener’s Best Companion in a Green-House (1756), also sold separately, was dedicated to Sloane but is largely inaccurate, basing global temperatures on latitude alone.”^[7]

Botanicum Medicinale

The Botanicum Medicinale lists 118 uniquely identified plants, “describing their places of growth, roots, bark, leaves, buds, time of flowering, blossoms, flowers, stiles, chives, embrio’s, fruits, farina, colours, seeds, kernels, seed-vessels, parts used in medicine, preparations in the shops, medicinal virtues, names in nine languages” and in this, also includes the “most beautifully engraved on 118 large folio copper-plates from the exquisite drawings of the late ingenious T. Sheldrake”. ^[8]

The first reference to the Botanicum Medicinale can be found in Sheldrake’s other work, The Causes of Heat and Cold in the Several Climates and Situations of this Globe, in the back of the book under “Advertisement: […] Now Publishing in Numbers by Subscription, BOTANICUM MEDICINALE; II. Or an Herbal of Medicinal Plants on the List of the College of Physicians, Descibing their places or Growth, Roots, Leaves, Flowers, Time of Flowering, Fruits, Seed-Vessels, Seeds, and Time of Ripening their Fruit. Colors and Parts used in Medicine, and what preparations are kept in the shops. Together with their Medicinal Virtues and Names in Nine Languages. Note, such Plants as grow in England are Drawn from the Life, with the greatest Exactness, all such Flowers or Parts of Flowers, as are too small to be distinguished by the Eye will be Magnified and marked on the Plates.” ^[9] The advertisement continues on the next page, where Sheldrake also outlines the purpose of this work, “To promote Botanic Knowledge, to prevent Mistakes in the Use of Simples in preparing Medicines, and to illustrate […] in proper Figure and Colours.”

“Sheldrake’s botanical artwork was noted for its beauty and clear delineation of a plant’s composition.”^[10] The pages from the Botanicum Medicinale are works of art to behold. Because of this, stand-alone pages have been widely available online, sold as both art prints and ephemera. Notably, however, the book is in the public domain and all images can be downloaded and printed from the book at no cost.^[11] A large and coloured, 1768 edition of the Botanicum Medicinale was priced at $48,750 in 2024, the copy was noted to be a complete book with all 118 plates and table section, this is due to the commonality of only have partial sections of the book during the time of its publishing.^[12]

Published posthumously in both 1759 and again in 1768 with no notable differences; but “it was originally published in parts (of three plates each) from 1755 (a wrapper survives in the John Johnson collection in the Bodleian), and then issued together with a general title-page in 1759.” ^[13]

** NOTE: This is not necessarily a credible source for historical facts. I am a philosopher and this is my own personal research. It did however take me hours to pour through the net to find all of this information. And so because there isn’t a wiki page on Sheldrake, I thought it would be fun to just put all my research together in that wiki style! Please refer to the reference list below for more credible sources.

Artem Alexandra

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Who is T. Sheldrake?

Background

Botanicum Medicinale

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Who is T. Sheldrake?

Background

Botanicum Medicinale

References

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