Caleb Threlkeld

Alfred Webb

A Compendium of Irish Biography

1878

Threlkeld, Caleb, M.D., author of Synopsis Stirpium Hibernicarum.. The first Essay of the kind in the Kingdom of Ireland (Dublin, 1727), was born in Cumberland, 31st May 1676. After studying at Glasgow, where he acquired a taste for botany, he settled near his birth-place as a dissenting clergyman. In 1712 he took the degree of Doctor of Medicine at Edinburgh, and next year, "having a straight income, and a large family, he removed to Dublin, and settled there in the united character of divine and physician." He ultimately devoted himself entirely to medicine, and became a successful and respected practitioner. He died in Mark's-alley, Dublin, 28th April 1728, aged 51, and was buried in "the new burial ground, belonging to St. Patrick's." His botanical work, above mentioned, which claimed to be the first essay of the kind attempted in Ireland, was published in Dublin the year before his death. Dr. Pulteney, in his Sketches of Botany, from which this notice is taken, says: "Threlkeld's Flora.. does not contain more than 535 species. The author appears to have been better acquainted with the history of plants than with plants themselves, and seems not to have studied botany in a systematic way."

Sources

46a. Botany, Historical and Biographical Sketches of, in England. Richard Pulteney, M.D. 2 vols. London, 1790.

Featured Books

An American widow’s account of her travels in Ireland in 1844–45 on the eve of the Great Famine:

Ireland’s Welcome to the Stranger

Sailing from New York, she set out to determine the condition of the Irish poor and discover why so many were emigrating to her home country.

Mrs Nicholson’s recollections of her tour among the peasantry are still revealing and gripping today.

The author returned to Ireland in 1847–49 to help with famine relief and recorded those experiences in the rather harrowing: Annals of the Famine in Ireland.

See more of our books »

The Ocean Plague: or, A Voyage to Quebec in an Irish Emigrant Vessel is based upon the diary of Robert Whyte who, in 1847, crossed the Atlantic from Dublin to Quebec in an Irish emigrant ship. His account of the journey provides invaluable eyewitness testimony to the trauma and tragedy that many emigrants had to face en route to their new lives in Canada and America. The book is also available in Kindle.

The Irish in America by John F. Maguire provides a substantial and invaluable account of the extreme difficulties faced by pioneer Irish immigrants in North America during the 19th Century. The book is also available in Kindle.

The Scotch-Irish in America tells the story of how the hardy breed of men and women, who in America came to be known as the ‘Scotch-Irish’, was forged in the north of Ireland during the seventeenth century. It relates the circumstances under which the great exodus to the New World began, the trials and tribulations faced by these tough American pioneers and the enduring influence they came to exert on the politics, education and religion of the country.

Show fewer titles