Thomas Horsfield

Thomas Walker Horsfield ( born May 12, 1773 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, † July 14, 1859 in London) was a British physician, zoologist and botanist. Its official botanical author abbreviation is " Horsf. ".

Horsfield was born in 1773 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and studied medicine there. He worked for many years as a doctor in Java. The East India Company took control of this island of the Netherlands, and Horsfield began to collect animals and plants on behalf of his friend Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles. Due to illness he had to leave Java in 1819 and became curator and later curator of the museum of the East India Company in London.

In 1826, Horsfield was Deputy Managing Director of the Zoological Society of London.

Works

• An experimental dissertation on the Rhus vernix, Rhus radicans and Rhus glabrum, Commonly known in Pennsylvania by the names of poison -ash, poison -vine and common sumach. Cist, Philadelphia 1798.
• Impressions of dried plants from Java. In 1812.
• Systematic arrangement and description of birds from the Iceland of Java. In 1820.
• The History and Antiquities of Lewes and its vicinity. Baxter, Lewes 1824.
• Zoological Researches in Java and the Neighbouring Iceland. Kingsbury, Parbury & Allen, London 1824.
• A descriptive catalog of the lepidopterous insects contained in the Museum of the Honourable East India Company. Parbury & Allen, London 1828/29.
• The history, antiquities and topography of the county of Sussex. Baxter, Lewes, 1835.
• Plantae javanicae rariores, descriptae iconibusque illustratae, quas in insula Java, annis 1802-1818. Allen, London 1838-52.
• Essay on the cultivation and manufacture of tea in Java. Cox & sons, London 1841.
• A catalog of the lepidopterous insects in the museum of the Hon East India Company. Allen, London 1857-59.