William Mitten

Who was William Mitten?

William Mitten was an English pharmaceutical chemist and authority on bryophytes who has been called "the premier bryologist of the second half of the nineteenth century".

He built up a collection of some 50,000 specimens of bryophytes at his home in Hurstpierpoint, Sussex. The collection was largely made up of specimens collected around the world by other collectors and is now at the New York Botanical Garden, having been purchased after his death. These collectors included Richard Spruce and also Alfred Russel Wallace, who subsequently became Mitten's son-in-law.