Henry Hugh Higgins and Frederick Price Marrat: the reluctant palaeobotanists and the Ravenhead collection

The life and work of two amateur palaeobotanists is presented as an example of collaborative investigations into finds resulting from a temporary exposure. Henry Hugh Higgins (1814–1893) and Frederick Price Marrat (1820–1904) can be included amongst the ranks of amateur palaeobotanists of the late nineteenth century. It was Higgins who instigated ‘rescue’ collecting from the Ravenhead Railway Cutting and accumulated one of the prime upper Westphalian A coal measure plant collections at a time when fossil plant taxonomy was in dispute. His collecting methods ensured that a fine suite of specimens was obtained, thus enabling taxonomic work to proceed on a firmer footing. Marrat, a conchologist and former bryologist, turned his taxonomic skills to the Ravenhead collection and described the flora, erecting several new types in the process.