William Jackson Bean was a Yorkshire-born gardener, writer, botanist, nurseryman and curator active in the UK in the late-19th and early- to mid-20th century. He worked first as a student (1883), then arboretum foreman (1892), then Assistant Curator (1900) and Curator (1922 to 1929) at Kew gardens and later, in the 1930s, advised on plantings at Stormont, Belfast, Northern Ireland. Amongst his many publications was Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles (1914).
Sources:
Desmond, Ray, Dictionary of British and Irish Botanists and Horticulturists (London: Taylor & Francis, 1994), pp. 57-58.
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, 'History and Heritage: People: Landscapers, Architects and Gardeners: William Bean' < http://www.rbgkew.org.uk/heritage/people/bean.html > [accessed 2 January 2009]