Transcript
reported to the W[oods] & F[orests Department]. I have since writing to you remembered the sale of these after, I think, the brother's death.
To add to my poor father's anxieties at the date of the migration to Kew, my Mother & sisters were at Jersey nursing my youngest sister, who died there early in 1841; my elder brother had died in Jamaica in 1840 -- & my grandfather Hooker,*12 who lived with us, then aged 86, was so ill that my father had to employ a physician to bring him to Kew -- by Sea. & I was on an expedition that brought it's anxieties with it, to them him.
I should add that in overdrawing his account at [1 word crossed out, illeg] the Bank, which he went on to do as long as he was at West Park*13, he could give the security of two good houses in Glasgow, and the cottage at Pendock[?]; all which he eventually sold satisfactorily.
These are 1/2 family details which I hope may have some interest for you
March 7/[18]99*1
The Camp,
Sunningdale.
My dear Dyer*2
Thanks for your letter.
The approval of the residence selected by my father-- simply applied to the site in respect of proximity to the Garden. The Board never troubled their heads further *3 any--thing further would have involved responsibility & that was the last thing they would desire. The £200 covered, or should have covered, rent, rates, taxes & repairs, which of course it did not. From some correspondence of his with my Grandfather I find he paid re paid £178 rent the first year -- he undertaking painting papering &c. or rather Sp[?] Relieving Gent[?]-- Popham of this for the rooms, where it which was not
not necessary in the case of the walls that were to be lined with book--shelves & plant cabinets, which of course he put up and painted himself.
The Works dept at Kew never even saw the house (the inside that is) nor did a single thing to it & he employed his own gardener.
When he left it, 14 rooms were full of books & plants. The Ferns alone (of the Herbarium) were accommodated at the Director's House in Kew when he went there.
I do not suppose I ever told you that from 1810 or before it, till his death, he purchased every botanical book he could lay hands on; chiefly though agents in London; and when in Glasgow the trouble & expense of this
were v[er]y great. I do not remember him boggling [1 word crossed out, illeg] over any but 2 -- one a splendid work of Jacquin which he tried in vain to "beat down" before purchasing. The other the "Flora Graeca"-- of this he managed to get hold of a complete copy of the letter press & plates uncolored, & paid (Graves I think) the colorist of the original (100?) copies to color for him. The original price of the whole was work was £300 if I remember aright. Bohn*4 bought up the remainder, & brought out a very inferior replica at £60, which my father would not buy.
The whole of the Cryptogam Lib[ra]ry at Kew was of course my father's; it was all but perfect in Ferns, Algae & Mosses.
The pecuniary sacrifices he made since[?] taking Kew were very great -- besides his many journeys backwards & forw[ar]ds between Glasgow & London, freight alone of his collections (in a sloop from R[iver] Clyde) was between £80 &
£90. I think it was the Carron C[o]mp[an]y (Iron-founders, hence "Carronards")*5 that undertook this. I find by the correspondence alluded to, that in Novr 1841, he had overdrawn his account at the Bank by £1,600! & had then no end of outstanding bills, including upward of £60 to Cuming[?]*6 and upward of £80 to Taylor*7 & co for work done on "Musci Exotici"*8 "Exotic Flora" *9 20 years previously!! a bill never before presented! & which I guess he disputed -- I knew that these works & the Brit. Jungermanniae*10 had cost him large sums. You may imagine his horror at such a bill being presented in the middle of his Kew embarckment[sic?].
Also I find that Aiton*11 in making over charge, claimed all the books and documents in his house as private property -- & had them all sent ahead! [1 word crossed out, illeg] to his brother's. [1 word crossed out, illeg]. This my father
reported to the W[oods] & F[orests Department]. I have since writing to you remembered the sale of these after, I think, the brother's death.
To add to my poor father's anxieties at the date of the migration to Kew, my Mother & sisters were at Jersey nursing my youngest sister, who died there early in 1841; my elder brother had died in Jamaica in 1840 -- & my grandfather Hooker,*12 who lived with us, then aged 86, was so ill that my father had to employ a physician to bring him to Kew -- by Sea. & I was on an expedition that brought it's anxieties with it, to them him.
I should add that in overdrawing his account at [1 word crossed out, illeg] the Bank, which he went on to do as long as he was at West Park*13, he could give the security of two good houses in Glasgow, and the cottage at Pendock[?]; all which he eventually sold satisfactorily.
These are 1/2 family details which I hope may have some interest for you
as a Member. As soon as I get the Ceylon Flora*14 off my hands I shall set to work to get more.
I went to the Levee[?] yesterday taken by Sir E Fanshawe*15 as usual, & spent a delightful day with him, [1 word illeg.] accompanying me -- leaving this morning. He had to present a Grandson, a quiet youth just appointed to a Halifax Regt [Regiment] and smothered in military millinery, the extravagant gaud of which is a thing to dream of. -- How the Govt. can sanction it is a marvel. The very waistcoat, worn under the shell-- jacket is one mass of gold embroidery on White Satin! -- beautiful indeed. His outfit cost £500 & £300 a year & his pay is the best he can do with in a very quiet cavalry Regiment for which no examination is required!!!
Y[ours] aff[ectionatel]y | Jos D Hooker [signature]
I shall go & see Paget*16. Except Sabina Smith*17 he is quite my oldest friend
1. A note written in another hand records that the letter was "Ans[wered]d 12.3.99". The letter is stamped "Royal Gardens, Kew 3-- Mar. [18]99"
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 the Royal Horticultural Society. He married Hooker's eldest daughter Harriet in 1877.
3. The text which runs from here to "…would desire" is written vertically up the left margin of page 1.
4. Possibly Henry George Bohn (1796--1884). British Publisher.
5. Carronards: short cast iron cannon was used by the Royal Navy; first produced by the Carron Company, an ironworks in Falkirk, Scotland, UK. It was used from the 1770s to the 1850s.
6. Possibly Hugh Coming, naturalist and traveller.
7. Thomas Taylor (1775--1848). English botanist, bryologist, and mycologist; collaborated with WJ Hooker on the Musci exotica.
8. Musci Exotica by William Jackson Hooker, 1818--1819.
9. Exotic Flora by William Jackson Hooker, Edinburgh, 1822--1827.
10. British Jungermanniae by William Jackson Hooker, 1812--1816.
11. William Townsend Aiton (1766 --1849). Director of Kew Gardens 1793--1841, succeeded by WJ Hooker.
12. Joseph Hooker, (1753--1845). Father of William Jackson Hooker, grandfather of Joseph Dalton Hooker. An amateur botanist with a particular interest in mosses.
13. West Park, Mortlake. Home of the Hooker family from 1841 and subsequently for the first ten years of William Jackson Hooker's tenure as Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.
14. A Hand-book to the Flora of Ceylon by Henry Trimen, Joseph Dalton Hooker and A.H.G. Alston, 1833--1931.
15. Sir Edward Fanshawe (1814--1906). Royal Navy Officer who went on to be Commander-in-Chief, Portsmouth.
16. Probably one of the Paget family of Great Yarmouth. Samuel Paget was a brewer in business with William Jackson Hooker, he had 17 sons. Joseph Hooker is probably referring here to Samuel's son Charles, a particular friend of Joseph's who named one of his own sons Charles Paget Hooker. Or to another son of Samuel's; Sir James Paget, regarded as one of the founders of scientific medical pathology he was a friend of Charles Darwin and an amateur botanist and as such continued to move in the same circles as Joseph Hooker.
17. Sabina Douglas Clavering Smith (fl. 1870s).Daughter of James Smith of Jordanhill. Married Robert Paisley of St. Ninian's, County Stirling, in 1878.
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