Philip Miller

Philip Miller (1691 to 1771) was an English botanist and gardener of Scottish descent who was chief gardener at the Chelsea Physic Garden for nearly 50 years from 1722 and wrote the highly popular Gardeners Dictionary. Born in Deptford or Greenwich, he was pressured to retire shortly before his death, and the botanist Peter Collinson wrote that he had raised the reputation of the Chelsea Garden so that it excelled all the gardens of Europe in variety of plants. The Gardeners Dictionary first appeared in 1731, passed through eight expanding editions in his lifetime and was translated into Dutch by Job Baster. Miller corresponded with other botanists and obtained plants from all over the world, many of which he cultivated for the first time in England, and his knowledge of living plants earned him election as a Fellow of the Royal Society. He trained William Aiton, later head gardener at Kew, and William Forsyth, after whom Forsythia was named.