William Charles Cotton MA 1813 - 1879 - Priest, Missionary and B

Smith, A R, 2006 Softback 239 pp Arthur Smith sets out to describe the life of the Revd. William Charles Cotton by first focusing on his work in New Zealand with Bishop George Selwyn, the first missionary Bishop in the Church of England to be commissioned to create a new diocese from scratch. After working with Selwyn in New Zealand, 1841- 1848, during which time Cotton developed his lifelong enthusiasm for bees, he returned to Britain dogged by ill health, to eventually hold the living of Frodsham, Cheshire between 1857 - 1879. Cotton, the supreme eccentric came to hold in his own lifetime a special place in the hearts of British Beekeepers, an interest that is still valid and borne witness to, by the reprinting of his three books My Bee Book, (1842 reprinted 1970) A Manual for New Zealand Beekeepers (1848 reprinted 1976) and Buzz a Buzz or The Bees (1872 reprinted 1982).