COYTE, William Beeston
William Beeston Coyte was born on 24 December 1740 and baptised on 4 January 1741, son of Dr William Coyte (1708-1775), MB of Ipswich, and his wife Elizabeth, daughter of James Cobbald of Layham, Suffolk. William was educated at Ipswich School and Queens College, Cambridge, graduating MB in 1763. Ordained deacon in July 1763, as curate at Bramford, Suffolk followed by Great Yarmouth, Norfolk. He then went as curate to Revd Thomas Forster at Halesworth, Suffolk. Afterwards, like his father, practised medicine at Ipswich also interesting himself in botany and was a fellow of the Linnĉan Society from 1794 until his death. His great-uncle William Beeston (1671-1732) founded the Ipswich gardens and when he died at Bentley he left as a condition to his heir and nephew Thomas Coyte of Bentley, that he live in his mansion in Ipswich and keep up the gardens. These gardens passed to William Coyte and on his death in 1775 to his son William Beeston Coyte who in 1796 catalogued and published a list of the contents. By his first wife, Sarah (1740-1776), daughter of Robert and Mary Rowning of Sproughton Hall, who died at Great Yarmouth on 21 September 1776, aged 30, had three children, who all died young; his second wife was Hester Ewer (1740-1820), daughter of Samuel Ewer, soap-boiler of Bishopsgate Street, London and she died on 31 July 1820, leaving issue. William Beeston Coyte died at his home in Queen Street, Ipswich on 3 March 1810 and buried beside his wife in St Nicholas church, Ipswich. His book 'Hortus botanicus Gippoviciensis' was published in Ipswich in 1796.