He was born in
Loughborough on 17 February 1730, the sole surviving child of thirteen children to Samuel Pulteney (1674–1754), a tailor, and his wife, Mary Tomlinson (1692–1759) from neighbouring
Hathern. The family were
Calvinists. His maternal uncle, George Tomlinson of Hathern, instilled in him an early love of Natural History. He was educated at
Loughborough Grammar School, and a school house was later named after him. After being apprenticed as an apothecary in Loughborough he was then sent to Scotland to study medicine at
Edinburgh University where he gained a doctorate (MD) in 1764. He served as an apothecary and physician in
Leicestershire for some years before obtaining a position as personal physician to the elderly
William Pulteney, 1st Earl of Bath, a very distant cousin, at his London address. In 1762 he was elected a Fellow of the
Royal Society of London. When the Earl died in 1764 he moved to Blandford in Dorset and remained there for the rest of his life. He formalised his role as doctor of the village in 1767. In this small rural community he had ample free time to devote himself to the study of nature. In 1779 aged 49, he married Elizabeth Galton (d.1820), daughter of John Galton of
Shapwick. They had no children but cared for one of Elizabeth's nieces as a daughter. In 1793 he was elected a Fellow of the
Royal Society of Edinburgh. His proposers were
Daniel Rutherford,
Dr Alexander Monro, and
William Wright. He died at
Blandford in
Dorset on 13 October 1801. He is buried in
Langton Herring churchyard in Dorset. A memorial table to his memory was erected in Blandford church. He bequeathed his
Hortus Siccus and collection of botanical books to the
Linnaean Society. ==Publications==