• Name: Thornton, Robert
• Gender: Male
• Birth Date: 1768
• Death Date: 21  January  1837
• Occupation: physician
• Occupation: writer on botany

The entries that have been coded are 'Dr Thornton', one in 1805, at Johnson's, and a group in 1817, the first being to Dr Thornton at J Taylor's. Following this entry there are five entries for 'Thornton' in relatively quick succession, suggesting this is the same person as that noted as Dr Thornton. These have been coded accordingly.

With respect to : 1 -- thorntons 1806-08-31 - since Robert Thornton's date of marriage is unknown and he had two children babtised in 1817 this has not been coded as Dr Thornton.

There is little to confirm the attribution - the use of Dr Thornton; the initial linlk with publishing circles; the suggestion of a link to an exhibition in 3 June 1817. There is no evidence of the letter from Godwin to Thornton in 23.6.1817 (not in Abinger). On the other hand, it seems unlikely that two men suffering from similar difficulties and similarly associated with a publishing venture in London, would not have met.

The 1825 entry is clearly not to Dr Robert Thornton, being 'Pole, Thornton and Co stop payment'.

See DNB and Desmond King-Hele, Erasmus Darwin and the Romantic Poets (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1986). The later has no evidence of an overlap between Godwin and Robert Thornton/Darwin's circle.

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This table lists the people this person is most frequently noted with in the diary.