Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Salmon, John Drew
SALMON, JOHN DREW (1802?–1859), ornithologist and botanist, born about 1802, lived from 1825 to 1833 at Stoke Ferry and from 1833 to 1837 at Thetford, Norfolk, whence he removed to Godalming, Surrey. He was afterwards manager of the Wenham Lake Ice Company, and resided over their office in the Strand. He visited Holland in 1825, the Isle of Wight in 1829, and the Orkneys in 1831. He was elected a fellow of the Linnean Society of London in 1852. He died at Stoke Ferry, on 5 Aug. 1859, aged 57.
Salmon was an enthusiastic naturalist, but wrote little. He published in 1836 ‘A Notice of the Arrival of Twenty-nine migratory Birds in the Neighbourhood of Thetford, Norfolk.’ Seven papers on ornithology and botany appeared between 1832 and 1852 in the ‘Annals and Magazine of Natural History,’ the ‘Zoologist’ and the ‘Phytologist;’ that on the flora of the neighbourhood of Godalming being reprinted by Newman in ‘The Letters of Rusticus,’ 1849. Salmon's manuscript notes on the plants of Surrey were incorporated in the ‘Flora of Surrey,’ which Thomas M. Brewer edited for the Holmesdale Natural History Club in 1863. Salmon began in 1828 to form a collection of eggs, part of which he bequeathed to the Linnean Society. The remaining portion, with his herbarium and natural history diaries from 1825 to 1837 he left to the Norwich Museum.
[Trans. Norf. and Norwich Naturalists' Soc. ii. 420; Proc. Linn. Soc. 1859–60, p. xxix; Gent. Mag. 1859 ii. 317; information kindly furnished by Professor A. Newton, W. G. Clarke, esq., and Thomas Southwell, esq.]