Viva Brighton Issue #65 July 2018
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BITS AND BUSES<br />
...............................<br />
ON THE BUSES #39:<br />
MARY MERRIFIELD (ROUTE 1A)<br />
Mary Philadelphia Merrifield (née Watkins) was<br />
born in Southwark in 1804 and moved to <strong>Brighton</strong><br />
with her husband in 1827. A bright, seemingly<br />
self-taught woman and mother of five, she would<br />
come to garner respect in academic and scientific<br />
circles at a time when both were almost entirely<br />
dominated by men.<br />
An accomplished linguist, Mary translated and<br />
published the works of the 15th-century painter<br />
Cennino Cennini and later undertook research<br />
trips to France and northern Italy, transcribing<br />
and copying manuscripts from some of Europe’s<br />
most prestigious libraries. Her findings were<br />
consolidated in the authoritative work The<br />
Art of Fresco Painting in the Middle Ages and the<br />
Renaissance, for which she was made an honorary<br />
member of the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna.<br />
In later life, her studious curiosity shifted towards<br />
natural history and she became an authority on<br />
botany and (fittingly for a seaside resident) a<br />
leading algologist. She learnt Swedish along the<br />
way, facilitating correspondence with the naturalist<br />
Jacob Georg Agardh, who named a species of<br />
marine algae after her.<br />
Throughout her retirement she wrote many<br />
papers for scientific journals and penned A Sketch<br />
of the Natural History of <strong>Brighton</strong> and its Vicinity,<br />
whilst helping to arrange the natural history<br />
galleries at <strong>Brighton</strong> Museum. Widowed in 1877,<br />
she moved to Cambridge to live with her daughter,<br />
where she died in 1888.<br />
Her herbarium now resides in the Natural<br />
History Museum but some of her seaweed<br />
specimens (including, we hope, some Rytiphlaea<br />
Merrifieldiae) can be found at the Booth Museum.<br />
Lizzie Lower<br />
Illustration by Joda (@joda_art)<br />
GARDEN CENTRE<br />
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OPENING<br />
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MON-SAT<br />
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9am-5pm<br />
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selection of fruit trees,<br />
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Seasonal bedding plants, shrubs and perennials.<br />
GARDEN CENTRE<br />
Compost, stoneware and turf available.<br />
<strong>Brighton</strong> Road, Henfield, West Sussex BN5 9RP 01273 494582 www.swainsfarmshop.co.uk
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