page_title: William Lobb
section_title: Later career and death
hierarchical_section_title: William Lobb / Later career and death
caption_attribution_description: English: Thomas and William Lobb botanist memorial garden plaque pictures Devoran Churchyard, Cornwall (photographed 2009)
context_page_description: William Lobb was a British plant collector, employed by Veitch Nurseries of Exeter, who was responsible for introducing to commercial growers Britain Araucaria araucana from Chile and the massive Sequoiadendron giganteum from North America.
  He and his brother, Thomas Lobb, were the first collectors to be sent out by the Veitch nursery business, with the primary commercial aim of obtaining new species and large quantities of seed. His introductions of the monkey-puzzle tree, Wellingtonia and many other conifers to Europe earned him the sobriquet "messenger of the big tree". In addition to his arboreal introductions, he also introduced many garden shrubs and greenhouse plants to Victorian Europe, including Desfontainia spinosa and Berberis darwinii, which are still grown today.
context_section_description: By the middle of 1854, James Veitch and his son, James Veitch, Jr. (who had acquired premises in Kings Road, Chelsea, London in 1853), decided that it was time for William and his brother, Thomas, to be sent off again to collect fresh seed and search for yet more new plants. Thomas was sent back to the far East, to Java and North Borneo in search of Nepenthes pitcher plants.
  
  William had been suffering from persistent ill-health for some time – James Veitch remarked that there was "a sort of restlessness about him" – and was exhibiting the symptoms of syphilis, probably contracted in the ports of South America. In a letter to Sir William Hooker, James Veitch noticed:
  He seems taken with a sort of monomania, which it is difficult to describe and which he could not explain himself, a sort of excitability and want of confidence.
   Despite his concerns, in the autumn of 1854, Veitch sent Lobb back to California on another three–year contract. Lobb was unable to make any further new discoveries, but sent back consignments of plants and seeds from time to time until the end of 1856. In January 1857, Veitch wrote to Hooker: "We hear Lobb has been ill, his writing appears shaky and I am inclined to think it is probable he will soon return."
  In the event, Lobb did not return to England and after the expiry of his contract in 1858 he remained in California. He sent back a small number of seeds to private collectors and to the Low nursery at Clapton, including a new variety of white fir (Abies concolor subsp. lowiana) (popularly known as "Low's white fir" after them) and the rare Torrey pine (Pinus torreyana). James Veitch complained to Lobb that he still had obligations to fulfill but Lobb was undeterred and caused Veitch further embarrassment by sending herbarium specimens and live plants direct to Sir William Hooker at Kew Gardens.
  Communications from Lobb gradually ceased, to the alarm of both his family and Veitch, who wrote to Hooker: "We thought he had given up collecting plants, for Californian gold." His last communication to his family was in 1860.
  On 3 May 1864, Lobb died forgotten and alone at St Mary's Hospital in San Francisco. The cause of death was recorded as "paralysis", but was probably as a result of syphilis. He had no mourners at his burial (on 5 May) in a public plot in Lone Mountain cemetery. In 1927, his headstone was moved to South Ridge Lawn and in 1940 to a crypt at Cypress Lawn Memorial Park under the care of the California Academy of Sciences.
  A small memorial plaque can be found in Devoran church, Cornwall where his brother Thomas Lobb was buried in 1894.
caption: Thomas and William Lobb botanist memorial garden plaque pictures Devoran Churchyard, Cornwall
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