Life
Swainson was born in Dover Place, St. Mary Newington, London, the eldest son of John Timothy Swainson, an original fellow of the Linnean Society. He was cousin of the amateur botanist Isaac Swainson. His father's family originated in Lancashire, and both grandfather and father held high posts in Her Majesty's Customs, the father becoming Collector at Liverpool.
William, whose formal education was curtailed because of an impediment in his speech, joined the Liverpool Customs as a junior clerk at the age of 14. He joined the Army Commissariat and toured Malta and Sicily He studied the ichthyology of western Sicily and in 1815, was forced by ill health to return to England where he subsequently retired on half pay. William followed in his father's footsteps to become a fellow of the Linnean Society in 1815.
In 1816 he accompanied the explorer Henry Koster to Brazil. Henry Koster had travelled to Brazil once before and became famous for his book Travels in Brazil. There he met Dr Grigori Ivanovitch Langsdorff, also an explorer of Brazil, and Consul General of Russia. They did not spend a long time on shore because of a revolution, but Swainson returned to England in 1818 in his words "a bee loaded with honey", with a collection of over 20,000 insects, 1,200 species of plants, drawings of 120 species of fish, and about 760 bird skins.
As with many Victorian scientists, Swainson was also a member of many learned societies, including the Wernerian Society of Edinburgh. He was elected a fellow to the Royal Society after his return from Brazil on 14 December 1820, and married his first wife Mary Parkes in 1823, with whom he had four sons ( William John, George Frederick, Henry Gabriel and Edwin Newcombe) and a daughter (Mary Frederica). Mary died in 1835.
Swainson re-married in 1840 to Ann Grasby, and emigrated to New Zealand in 1841. He was involved in property management and natural history-related publications from 1841–1855, and forestry-related investigations in Tasmania, New South Wales, and Victoria 1851-1853. Swainson died at Fern Grove, Lower Hutt, New Zealand, on 7 December 1855.
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—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Had I but died an hour before this chance
I had lived a blessed time; for from this instant
There’s nothing serious in mortality.
All is but toys. Renown and grace is dead;
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Is left this vault to brag of.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“Come, my Way, my Truth, my Life:
Such a Way as gives us breath:
Such a Truth as ends all strife:
Such a Life as killeth death.”
—George Hebert (1593–1633)