Leonard Cockayne, 1855-1934

The death of Leonard Cockayne, C.M.G., Ph.D., Hon. D.Sc., F. R. S., is a very severe loss to the science of botany, not only in the Dominion of New Zealand, which he had made his home, but throughout the world. Leonard Cockayne was born at Thorpe House, Norton Lees, Derbyshire —a village some miles five S.E. of Sheffield—on April 7, 1855, and was the youngest son of Mr. William Cockayne, Merchant. His natural history tastes were apparently inborn and in his early days, as I learn from one of his nieces, he pressed flowers. As his brothers and his sister were also keen gardeners, his home surroundings were obviously in accord with his scientific turn of mind, and he must have lived in an atmosphere in which his taste for natural history was encouraged and stimulated. From school he went to Wesley College, Sheffield, and then to Owens College, Manchester, during the session 1872-74, with the original intention of becoming a doctor. There he studied chemistry, botany, plant physiology, zoology, and animal physiology, as an occasional student, but he did not proceed to take a degree nor did he further pursue his medical studies.