Hooker, Sir Joseph Dalton
JHC377
Alderley Grange, Wotton Under Edge, [Gloucestershire, United Kingdom]
JDH/2/16 f.25
Thiselton-Dyer, Sir William Turner
The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
© Descendants of Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker
Letters to Thiselton-Dyer
The Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
English
Original MS
8 page letter over 2 folios
 

JDH is determined that he & Sir William Thiselton-Dyer will not lose Currey [as a Secretary of the Linnean Society?]. JDH supports Thiselton-Dyer's plans to reform the Linnean Society. JDH will remonstrate Allman for snubbing the Linnean Society by sending his paper to the Royal Society. Thinks they can succeed in having the Council Room turned into a meeting room on a trial basis. JDH reassures Thiselton-Dyer that his sympathies are not opposed to biological botany. He thinks the work that Thiselton-Dyer was doing for him prior to the Cape flora was not advancing Thiselton-Dyer's scientific status or wealth, though it was of great use to JDH. Thiselton-Dyer's work on the Cape flora was to redress this balance, especially as it relates to his personal field of interest, geographic botany & there is an audience for it. If Thiselton-Dyer had expressed a preference for pure physiology over systematic work JDH would have been equally supportive & still urged him to seek work that was useful & paid well. JDH's opinion of the British Association [for the Advancement of Science] is that it has out lived its original purpose & is now in unnecessary competition with other societies. He concedes that [the 44th meeting of the British Association at] Belfast was exceptional as a useful British Association exercise. The Linnean Society is useful to JDH for its resources, he joined it for his own benefit as well as science's & is willing to exert some effort to preserve it, unlike the BA. JDH observes that the biological side of zoology is becoming associated with the Royal Society rather than the Linnean & thought there should be enough papers for both there is also competition from the zoology and microscopical societies. He thinks the latter should be assumed into the Linnean Society but doubts that is practical.

Transcript

should have left you under the impression that my "sympathies" are opposed to the Biological "side of Botany" -- I am quite at a loss to think what I said to lead you to think this -- & whatever it was, I exceedingly regret it. Our conversation was a mixed & muddled one, personal in two respects & general in many more. Personally I felt for myself, that I was committed in the matter of the Cape Flora. Personally I felt for you, that your acquirements & powers are being expended on labors[sic] that do not tend to give you that scientific position to which you are so well entitled: and personally as regards us both, I felt that I had individually profited by your

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Alderley Grange[?]
Saturday [1874]*1

Dear Dyer*2
When I get home we will lay our heads together & &[sic] I will then write to [Frederick?] Currey. We must not lose him. Your position towards him is exactly what mine was apropos to Bennett some 20 years ago: With patience & prudence I look to carrying y[ou]r reforms in the [Linnean?] Society. I should really like to be on the Council, so as to support you -- but we must not appear to force concerted measures. Your temperament & mine are essentially different,-- I am over-sanguine, you perhaps too

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much the other way.
I shall certainly remonstrate with Allman about sending his paper to the Royal: which will be regarded as a snub to the Linnean. Though I am sure he does not intend it as such. Bentham may not quite like the idea of turning the Council Room into a meeting room but I am quite sure he will not oppose it, or be "dis-pleased". Let Allman put this matter from the chair in the Council; & I hope that the trial of it will be carried.
I am so vexed with myself for having disheartened you the other night, & am myself much concerned that I

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should have left you under the impression that my "sympathies" are opposed to the Biological "side of Botany" -- I am quite at a loss to think what I said to lead you to think this -- & whatever it was, I exceedingly regret it. Our conversation was a mixed & muddled one, personal in two respects & general in many more. Personally I felt for myself, that I was committed in the matter of the Cape Flora. Personally I felt for you, that your acquirements & powers are being expended on labors[sic] that do not tend to give you that scientific position to which you are so well entitled: and personally as regards us both, I felt that I had individually profited by your

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acquirements & labors[sic] unduly that is they should have advantaged you more & no less comparison to your own merits & deserts -- Most generously you have given me your services; & I have lain down many a time to think of nothing but how can I turn this man's labors[sic] to his own good; instead of monopolising them myself.-- The Cape Flora, voluntarily & gladly accepted by yourself, was the most obvious way. In itself it is no high work in a high walk; but it has a special interest; & in connection with Geographic Botany which you once desired to make your study on the "Biological side of Botany"-- it would be not only interesting but necessary. These views were your own adopting 2 years ago or so, & I thought them

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eminently wise ones. My warm participation in them surely showed no want of sympathy with Biology as opposed to System[?]. Had you declined the systematic work & come forward to devote your attention to pure physiology at Kew, I hope & believe you would have found me as sympathetic -- -- Assuredly I should have as strongly lifted up my voice against your devotion of so much time & labor[sic] to what is unremunerative [1 word crossed out, illeg.] both pecuniarily & in point of position, & as I think productively too.
With regard to the British Association [for the Advancement of Science], I feel acutely that I should not have alluded to it -- though I did it in a general way & with no reference thought of

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[1 word crossed out, illeg.] Belfast [44th meeting of the British Association]. Had you not been officially [1 word crossed out, illeg.] required to do so, I should still have asked you to assist in that, independently of the personal assistance to myself for the sake of [John] Tyndal & his cause. But you know my views of the B.A., that it is played out in respect of its original intentions, that it is robbing the Societies of papers energy & workers, & that for us, as a rule, "the game is not worth the candle" -- I do not mean that the Belfast game was not -- far from it. but I regard that as quite exceptional.
Then as regards the Linnean, I am older older & more selfish than you are; I have a veiled interest in it & I joined it to advantage myself as well as Science, by its meetings, Library, & publications &c

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It is an advantage to me that I should by that its means get papers, my own & others too, speedily & well published. & for this it is worth my while to sacrifice some time & trouble in securing for its welfare. If the Linnean was to demand this time & trouble annually, like the Brit[ish] Ass[ociatio]n, I should abandon it to younger hands. If the Linnean offered me no more advantages than the B.A. I should equally abandon it. True the disinterested disinterested motives (of which I hope I am not void) that inspire me to keep either, are the same in kind, but altogether different in degree. The Linnean well worked, is an unmixed[?] good, not so the Brit[ish] Ass[ociatio]n.
I intend to arrange this coming month for giving the R[oya]l[?] Chair to

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a V. P. on several occasions so as to attend the Linnean:-- for obvious reasons I could not do this last winter. --
Your notion of rallying the Biological side of Zoology to the Linnean is advocated strongly in one of Bentham's addresses. -- Most unhappily this "side" of Zoology is trending to the Royal & I am sitting between two stools. There should be plenty for both, but not for both & the Zoology & Microscopical Societies too. What we really want is to embody[?] the Microscopical with the Linnean, but the tendency to differentiation is too strong for us I fear what do you think?
Lastly if it was a matter affecting Currey alone I would not wonder at your being disposed to leave the *3 Linnean to its stumbles[?]-- but with a new President & Secretary, new bye laws & new apartments, it would be wrong[?] in us to do so.
Ever sincerely y[our]s | Jos. D. Hooker[signature]

ENDNOTES


1. A pencil annotation written in another hand records the date as 1874.
2. Sir William Turner Thiselton-Dyer (1843--1928). British botanist and third Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (1885--1905). He succeeded Joseph Hooker in the role after serving as his Assistant Director for ten years. He previously held professorships at the Royal Agricultural College Cirencester, Royal College of Science for Ireland and Royal Horticultural Society. He married Hooker's eldest daughter Harriet in 1877.
3. The wording from here to Hooker's signature is written vertically upwards on the left hand side of page 5, crossing with the horizontal text. It follows on from the end of the text on page 8.

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