1487, the place of his death, according to a notice in the year-books, being eight leagues from London. According to Foss he married Elizabeth, daughter of William Green of Hayes in Middlesex. He was buried, as he had himself directed, in the abbey of St. James at Northampton, and left behind him seven sons and two daughters, who are all mentioned in his will.
[Foss's Judges, v. 42; Dugdale's Warwickshire, 788; Nicolas's Testamenta Vetusta, 389; Report ix. of Deputy-Keeper of Public Records, App. ii. Foss calls attention to a John Catesby who is referred to in a document of 1485 (Rymer, xii. 275), as having at some past date occupied a house called the ‘Grene Lates,’ adjoining Westminster Hall; but this could scarcely have been the judge, as he is not even designated knight, either there or in the Act of Attainder (Rolls of Parl. vi. 372), and in the latter he ought certainly to have been recognised, both as knight and justice.]
CATESBY, MARK (1679?–1749), naturalist, was born, probably in London, about 1679. After studying natural science in London, he raised the means for starting on a voyage to the New World in 1710. After an absence of several years, spent in travelling over a very extensive district, Catesby returned to England in 1719, with a collection of plants, which was reported to have been the most perfect which had ever been brought to this country. This attracted the attention of men of science, especially Sir Hans Sloane and Dr. Sherard. Catesby remained in England for some time arranging and naming his specimens, a considerable number of which passed into the museum of Sir Hans Sloane. With some assistance from Sloane, Catesby again went to America in 1722, and eventually settled in Carolina. He returned to England in 1726, and at once set seriously to work in preparing materials for his large and best known work, ‘Natural History of Carolina, Florida, and the Bahama Islands, with Observations on the Soil, Air, and Water.’ This book was accompanied by a new map, constructed by Catesby, of the districts explored. The first volume was published in 1731 and the second in 1743. There were upwards of 100 plates; all the figures of the plants being drawn and etched by Catesby himself. He also coloured all the first copies, and the tinted copies required were executed under his inspection. After the publication of this work, on 26 April 1733, he was admitted a fellow of the Royal Society. A second edition—which was revised by M. Edwards, with an appendix—was issued in 1748. A German translation, with an introduction by ‘M. Edwards du College Royal des Médecins de Londres,’ was published at Nüremberg in 1756. A third edition was required in 1771, to which a Linnæan index was appended. Catesby also produced (in 1737?) ‘Hortus Britanno-Americanus, or a Collection of 85 curious Trees and Shrubs, the production of North America, adapted to the Climate and Soil of Great Britain,’ fol., seventeen engravings. Many trees and shrubs were first introduced by him, and the publication of this volume added considerably to the introduction of American plants.
A West Indian genus of shrubs of the order Cinchonaceæ was named Catesbæa after this naturalist.
In 1747 Catesby read a paper before the Royal Society ‘On the Migration of Birds,’ which contained much new and striking evidence on the subject.
Catesby resided for some time in the Isle of Providence, making a collection of fishes and submarine productions. He published the results of this inquiry in a folio volume, entitled ‘Piscium, Serpentum, Insectorum aliorumque nonnullorum Animalium, nec non Plantarum quarundam, Imagines.’ An edition of this work appeared in Nüremberg, 1777.
Catesby died at his house in Old Street, London, on 23 Dec. 1749, aged 70, leaving a widow and two children.
[Pulteney's Biog. Sketches of Botany; Drake's Dict. of American Biog., Boston, 1872; Lindley and Moore's Treasury of Botany.]
CATESBY, ROBERT (1573–1605), second and only surviving son of Sir William Catesby of Lapworth, Warwickshire, by Anne, daughter of Sir Robert Throckmorton of Coughton in the same county, was born at Lapworth in 1573. He was sixth in descent from William Catesby [q. v.], of the household to Henry VI (Rot. Parl. v. 197) and speaker of the House of Commons in the parliament of 1484 (vi. 238), who, being on the side of Richard III, escaped from the battle of Bosworth only to be hanged at Leicester a few days afterwards (Gairdner, Richard III, 308). The attainder against him being reversed, his estates reverted to his family, and the Catesbys added largely to them in the century that followed. Sir William Catesby, in common with the great majority of the country gentry throughout England who were resident upon their estates and unconnected with the oligarchy who ruled in the queen's name at court, threw in his lot with the catholic party and suffered the consequences of his conscientious adherence to the
