Patrick Matthew (20 October 1790 – 8 June 1874) was a Scottish grain merchant, fruit farmer, forester, and landowner, who contributed to the understanding of horticulture, silviculture, and agriculture in general, with a focus on maintaining the British navy and feeding new colonies. He published the basic concept of natural selection as a mechanism in evolutionary adaptation and speciation in 1831 (i.e. resulting from positive natural selection, in contrast to its already, widely known, negative role in removal of individuals in the Struggle for Survival), but did not further develop or publicize his ideas. Consequently, when Charles Darwin later published On the Origin of Species in 1859, he and Alfred Russel Wallace were regarded by their scientific peers as having originated (independently of each other) the theory of evolution by natural selection; it has been suggested that Darwin and/or Wallace had encountered Matthew's earlier work, but there is no hard evidence of this. After the publication of On the Origin of Species, Matthew contacted Darwin, who in subsequent editions of the book acknowledged that the principle of natural selection had been anticipated by Matthew's brief statement, mostly contained in the appendices and addendum of his 1831 book On Naval Timber and Arboriculture.
Life
Patrick Matthew was born 20 October 1790 at Rome, a farm held by his father John Matthew near Scone Palace, in Perthshire. His mother was Agnes Duncan, a relative of Adam Duncan, 1st Viscount Duncan.—Patrick Matthew took over the management of Gourdiehill Estate and began in earnest to plant his orchards that would eventually grow to over 10,000 apple and pear trees and would become some of the finest in the entire British Empire. In 1807, Matthew inherited Gourdiehill from Adam Duncan. Admiral Duncan inherited Gourdiehill, Auchmuir and Seaside estates upon the death of his older brother Alexander, who had previously inherited these 3 estates from his parents near the small village of Errol.
Matthew was educated at Perth Academy and the University of Edinburgh, but did not graduate due to the death of his father. Matthew had to take over the responsibilities of managing and running the affairs of a property estate at Gourdiehill. Over the years he successfully nurtured, cultivated, and transformed much of the estate's farmland and pastures into several large orchards of apple and pear trees, numbering over 10,000. During this time, Matthew became an avid researcher of both silviculture and horticulture. His research and experience at the modest estate framed a strong base of reference to form his own opinions and theories.
Matthew periodically traveled to Europe between 1807 and 1831 either on business or for his scientific studies. A trip to Paris in 1815 had to be cut short when Napoleon returned from Elba. Between 1840 and 1850, Matthew traveled extensively in what is now northern Germany. Recognizing the commercial potential of Hamburg, he bought two farms in Schleswig-Holstein.
Matthew married his maternal first cousin, Christian Nicol in 1817, and they had eight children: John (born 1818), Robert (1820), Alexander (1821), Charles (1824), Euphemia (1826), Agnes (1828), James Edward (1830), and Helen Amelia (1833). Robert farmed Gourdiehill in Patrick's old age, Alexander took over the German interests; the other three sons emigrated, initially to the United States. Matthew became interested in the colonization of New Zealand and was instrumental in setting up a "Scottish New Zealand Land Company". At his urging, James and Charles Matthew emigrated to New Zealand, where they set up one of the earliest commercial orchards in Australasia using seed and seedlings from Gourdiehill. John Matthew remained in America, sending botanical tree specimens back to his father; these included the first seedlings known to have been planted in Europe of both the Giant Redwood and the Coastal Redwood. A group of trees of these species still thriving near Inchture in Perthshire comes from these seedlings. Matthew gave many more seedlings to friends, relatives and neighbors, and redwoods can be found throughout the Carse of Gowrie; these as well as some elsewhere in Scotland (e.g. at Gillies Hill near Stirling Castle) are thought to have been grown from the seedlings. His reputation as a local celebrity faded in the twentieth century, when he was remembered as a "character" who at the end of his life became convinced that "someone very dear to his heart" had become a bird, and "that was the rizzen he wouldna allow the blackies to be shot in his orchard for fear they would shute her, ye ken, although the blackies were sair on the fruit".