Born at
Shenley,
Buckinghamshire, John Leonard Knapp was the son of Primatt Knapp, rector of Shenley. Educated at
Thame grammar school, Knapp entered the navy, but finding the sea unsuited to his health, he resigned and served successively in the
Herefordshire and
Northamptonshire militia, becoming a captain in the latter. He lived for a time at
Powick, near
Worcester, and was then in the habit of making long summer botanical excursions. On one of these he visited Scotland in company with Scottish botanist
George Don and collected several of the rarest species of British native grasses.
Publications In 1804 he published
Gramina Britannica, or Representations of the British Grasses on 119 coloured plates, with Descriptions, in
quarto, the figures being executed by himself. This edition was, with the exception of a hundred copies, destroyed by a fire at Bensley's, the printers, and the book was not reissued until 1842. In 1818 Knapp published anonymously a poem entitled "Arthur, or the Pastor of the Village," and between 1820 and 1830 a series of articles, under the title of ‘The Naturalist's Diary,’ in the almanac series ‘Time's Telescope.’ These formed the germ of his most successful work, the
Journal of a Naturalist, published anonymously in 1829, which went through three editions during his lifetime. It was published in America in 1853 as
Country Rambles in England with an introduction and notes by
Susan Fenimore Cooper. Knapp viewed it as a botanical companion to
Gilbert White's ‘Selborne.’
Personal life He lived till 1813 at
Llanfoist, near
Abergavenny, and subsequently at
Alveston, near
Bristol, where he died. In 1804 he married Lydia Frances Freeman (1772-1838), daughter of Arthur Freeman of
Antigua, by whom he had seven children; two sons and a daughter survived him. His son Arthur John Knapp (d. 1883) was a
Bristol solicitor and one of the original promoters of the
Great Western Railway. ==Commemoration==