William Turner (naturalist)

William Turner was an English divine and reformer, a physician and a natural historian. He has been called "the father of English botany". He studied medicine in Italy, and was a friend of the great Swiss naturalist Conrad Gessner. He was an early herbalist and ornithologist, and it is in these fields that the most interest lies today. He is known as being one of the first "parson-naturalists" in England.