William Henry Wormald was the son of Thomas Wormald and his wife Francis Esther Milligan. He resided in East London by 1871 and practiced there as a solicitor. In August 1873 he was appointed secretary of the school committee (known as the Grey Institute) of Grey High School. In 1888 he was appointed Town Clerk of East London, serving until August 1896, when the town council demoted him to curator of the Queen's Park Botanical Garden. His demotion caused a public outcry, but efforts to rescind the decision were unsuccessful. He assumed duty as curator of the garden early in 1897, succeeding Charles Franz, and held the position until 1903. At first he went to great effort to beautify the garden and encouraged the donation of plants from various sources. However, after 1898 East London entered a period of extreme drought, which lasted to about 1904. During this period the town's water supply dried up completely and the garden was severely strained. From 1904 to 1922 he worked as a rate collector in East London.

In 1890 Wormald was a country member of the Eastern Province Naturalists' Society, founded in Port Elizabeth in 1884. That year he presented some birds from East London to the Zoological Society of London. The short-lived East London Natural History Society appears to have been formed in 1891, and Wormald was its honorary secretary for the next three years. In 1896 he presented plants to the Cape Government Herbarium. In 1919 he became a member of the South African Association for the Advancement of Science. At that time he was a Fellow of the Royal Horticultural Society. The fern species Isoëtes wormaldii which he found floating in ponds in East London in 1893, was named after him by T.R. Sim*. Wormald imported banana and pineapple plants and distributed these in the Eastern Cape. The pineapple plants he sent to the Chalumna Farmers' Association probably contributed to the start of the local pineapple industry.

Wormald married (Mary) Katherine (or Catherine) Cuyler Armstrong in Port Elizabeth on 16 November 1870. They had three sons and seven daughters, including the plant collector Katherine Cuyler Wormald*.

List of sources:

Argus annual and Cape of Good Hope directory, 1892-1894: East London Natural History Society.

National Automated Archival Information Retrieval System (NAAIRS). http://national.archives.gov.za/naairs.htm Documents relating to Wormald, William Henry / Wormald, W.H.

Compiled by: C. Plug

Last updated: 2021-06-18 11:26:53