John Parkinson, born c1566, started his working life in medicine, beginning his apprenticeship to a London apothecary. He went on to become one of the most respected apothecaries in Britain. He was elected junior warden of the Society of Apothecaries in August 1620 but at the beginning of 1622, he asked for, and was granted, permission to give up his duties in the Society and then concentrated on his garden in London's Long Acre. Here he started researching and writing his first book: Paradisi in sole paradisus terrestris, and maintained close relations with other important English and Continental botanists, herbalists and plantsmen.