Edward Parfitt (1820-1893), Librarian of the Devon and Exeter Institution; botanist and horticulturalist, was born at East Tuddenham near Norwich in 1820, the son of Edward Parfitt (1800-1875) and Violet Howlet (1800-1836). He worked with his father, who was gardener to Lord Hastings at Melton Constable, Norfolk. He was for two years Curator of Taunton Museum, and Librarian at the Devon and Exeter Institution from 1861 to his death. From 1863 he contributed some fifty papers to the Transactions of the Devonshire Association on plants, insects and geology. He died in the Devon and Exeter Institution on 15 January 1893. (See Notes and Queries, 5th series, IV, 262-263 for his full autobiographical letter to George Boase in 1884.)
From the guide to the Parfitt Papers, 1851-64, (University of Exeter)
