William Casson
William Casson (1796–1886) was an English botanist, seed merchant, and local historian. He discovered the Fen or Crested Buckler-fern Dryopteris cristata in Yorkshire and wrote a local history of Thorne, The History and Antiquities of Thorne, with some account of the drainage of Hatfield Chase (1829, 3rd edition 1874).
He and his brother John created a large garden on the edge of the Thorne Moors, where they bred rhododendron, sheep laurel, and spring beauty. William was born in Thorne on 23 October 1796 to Mordecai and Mary Casson. He had two brothers, Mordecai and John Calvert, and a sister, Sarah. After a basic education at the vicarage school, he trained as a grocer and later worked in his grandfather’s Thorne grocery business.
By the mid-1850s, William and John were successful seedsmen, grocers, and farmers. They started an important nursery east of Thorne and turned the unproductive moor into a place for growing plants for their business (Limbert 1991).
Casson was a devoted Quaker. He helped with Thorne Friends Preparative Meeting and Balby Monthly Meeting. In March 1879 he became a minister and travelled to other meetings in Yorkshire, often with Henry Hopkins, a Scarborough Quaker minister.
He cared deeply about the district’s poor and the inmates of Thorne Union workhouse, visiting the workhouse often and leading Sunday services there for several years. He was a liberal who held several parish offices and played a key role in the Thorne Literary & Scientific Association.
In his later years he suffered a hip injury and lost an eye but kept up his busy schedule. He died of erysipelas on 22 January 1886 and was buried at the Friends’ burial ground off Church Lane in Thorne.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 08:51 (CET).