1839-1844 apprentice to a wholesale draper, Norwich; 1844-1851 worked as a clerk, London; 1851-1859 master, Holy Trinity national school, Lambeth; 1862-1880 curator at the India Museum; 1865 co-founder of Science Gossip; 1880-1892 seconded to Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, as cryptogamic botanist; published extensively, primarily on fungi.
Epithet: botanist and mycologist