| AdminHistory | Sarah Anne Drake (1803–1857) was an English botanical illustrator.
Drake was born on 24 July 1803 in Skeyton, Norfolk, and went to school with the sister of the London University botanist, John Lindley. As a young woman, she went to Paris, where she studied painting as was expected of young women of the day. In 1830 she moved into the Lindley home at Acton Green in London where she held a number of roles, including that of governess. She trained as a botanical artist and gradually took over from Lindley in the illustration of his botanical publications. Drake also collaborated with Augusta Withers on the drawings for the Orchidaceae of Mexico and Guatemala by James Bateman, but she also contributed to Lindley's book, Ladies' Botany (1834–1837), Nathaniel Wallich's Plantae Asiaticae Rariores, John Forbes Royle's Illustrations of the botany and other branches of the natural history of the Himalayan Mountains, and to The Botany of HMS Sulphur (1836–1842).
Drake's career ended when the Botanical Register went out of business in 1847. She returned to Norfolk to care for elderly relatives and moved in with her uncle, Daniel Drake. In 1852 she married John Sutton Hastings, a wealthy farmer. She died on 9 July 1857. |