Charles Alfred Weatherby papers

Charles Alfred Weatherby was born in Hartford, Connecticut on December 25, 1875, the son of Charles Nathaniel and Grace Weld (Young) Weatherby. Weatherby entered Harvard in 1893 and concentrated on the study of literature. He graduated summa cum laude in 1897 and stayed another year to earn an A.M. in literature. Shortly after college, his parents separated, and he went to live with his mother in East Hartford. Between 1899-1905, Weatherby was ill and thus unable to continue formal academic studies or to work. He managed to further develop an amateur interest in botany by joining the Connecticut Botanical Society and working on a committee that was compiling a flora of Connecticut. His work on the Connecticut flora led him to spend time at the Gray Herbarium, and he became a voluntary assistant in the summers of 1908, 1909 and 1911.

In 1910, Weatherby accompanied his mother to Europe, where he met Una Lenora Foster, with whom he began a correspondence. Una was an artist and was interested in botany. She worked with Weatherby on some of his projects and became a botanical illustrator in the process. They were married on May 16, 1917, and settled in East Hartford. Weatherby continued his pattern of living in East Hartford and doing some part-time work at the Gray Herbarium. In 1928 Weatherby's mother died, and the next year the couple moved to Cambridge. Weatherby became a full-time assistant curator, and from 1937 to 1940 he was senior curator. On his retirement in 1940 he was made a research associate of the Gray Herbarium, and he continued doing work there until his death on June 21, 1949.

In his early days at the Gray Herbarium, Weatherby worked with M.L. Fernald on Puccinellia. He joined the American Fern Society in 1912, was an editor of the American Fern Journal from 1915 to 1940 and was president of the Society from 1943 to 1944. Weatherby is probably best known as a fern specialist, but he worked in other areas as well. He was very involved in botanical nomenclature: at the 1935 International Botanical Congress in Amsterdam, he and Alfred Rehder were appointed the two American members of the International Committee on the Nomenclature of Vascular Plants. He was selected by W.H. Camp to be on the nomenclature committee of the American Society of Plant Taxonomists in 1946 and he was scheduled to be vice president of the Section on Nomenclature at the 1950 International Botanical Congress at Stockholm. Weatherby made several trips with Una to gather information on type specimens in European herbaria and on the Elliott types in Charleston, where Una drew or photographed the specimens. Other activities included helping with the Gray Herbarium Index and doing editorial work for Rhodora and Brittonia. A lengthy list of his publications from Rhodora (volume 51, pages 179-191) gives an idea of the breadth of his interests.

References:

M. L. Fernald. "Charles Alfred Weatherby, Botanist and Helper of Botanists." Rhodora 51 (1949). W.H. Camp. "Charles Alfred Weatherby." Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club 77 (1950). Alice F. Tryon. "Una Foster Weatherby." American Fern Journal 48 (1958). Una F. Weatherby. Charles Alfred Weatherby: A Man of Many Interests. (Cambridge: Self-published, 1951).