Life

The eldest of the second family of his father, John Doody, an apothecary

Apothecary

Apothecary is a historical name for a medical professional who formulates and dispenses materia medica to physicians, surgeons and patients — a role now served by a pharmacist and some caregivers....

 in Staffordshire

Staffordshire

Staffordshire is a landlocked county in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes, the county is a NUTS 3 region and is one of four counties or unitary districts that comprise the "Shropshire and Staffordshire" NUTS 2 region. Part of the National Forest lies within its borders...

 who later moved to London where he had a shop in The Strand, he was born in Staffordshire 28 May 1656. He went into his father's business, to which he succeeded about 1696.

He undertook the care of the Apothecaries' Garden at Chelsea

Chelsea Physic Garden

The Chelsea Physic Garden was established as the Apothecaries’ Garden in London, England in 1673. It is the second oldest botanical garden in Britain, after the University of Oxford Botanic Garden, which was founded in 1621.Its rock garden is the oldest English garden devoted to alpine plants...

 in 1693, at a salary of £100, which he seems to have continued until his death. Two years later he was elected Fellow of the Royal Society. He died, after some weeks' illness, the last week in November 1706, and was buried at Hampstead

Hampstead

Hampstead is an area of London, England, north-west of Charing Cross. Part of the London Borough of Camden in Inner London, it is known for its intellectual, liberal, artistic, musical and literary associations and for Hampstead Heath, a large, hilly expanse of parkland...

 3 December, his funeral sermon being preached by his friend Adam Buddle

Adam Buddle

Adam Buddle was an English cleric and botanist.Born at Deeping St James, a small village near Peterborough, Buddle was educated at St Catharine's College, Cambridge, where he gained a BA in 1681, and an MA four years later. Buddle was eventually ordained into the Church of England, obtaining a...

.

Works

His sole contribution as an author seems to be a paper in the Philosophical Transactions (1697), xix. 390, on a case of dropsy in the breast. He had given some attention to botany before 1687, the date of a commonplace book, but his help is first acknowledged by John Ray

John Ray

John Ray was an English naturalist, sometimes referred to as the father of English natural history. Until 1670, he wrote his name as John Wray. From then on, he used 'Ray', after "having ascertained that such had been the practice of his family before him".He published important works on botany,...

 in 1688 in the second volume of the Historia Plantarum. He was intimate with the botanists of his time: Ray, Leonard Plukenet

Leonard Plukenet

Leonard Plukenet was an English botanist, Royal Professor of Botany and gardener to Queen Mary. Plukenet published Phytographia in four parts in which he described and illustrated rare exotic plants. It is a copiously illustrated work of more than 2 700 figures and is frequently cited in books...

, James Petiver

James Petiver

James Petiver was a London apothecary, a Fellow of the Royal Society as well as London's informal Temple Coffee House Botany Club, famous for his study of botany and entomology.-Life:...

, and Hans Sloane

Hans Sloane

Sir Hans Sloane, 1st Baronet, PRS was an Ulster-Scot physician and collector, notable for bequeathing his collection to the British nation which became the foundation of the British Museum...

. He devoted himself to cryptogams, at that time very little studied, and became an authority on them. The results of his herborisations round London were recorded in his copy of Ray's ‘Synopsis,’ 2nd edit., now in the British Museum

British Museum

The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...

, and were used by Dillenius in preparing the third edition..