Hooker, Sir Joseph Dalton
JHC561
The Camp, Sunningdale, Berkshire, United Kingdom
JDH/2/16 f.202
Thiselton-Dyer, Sir William Turner
The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
19-12-1909
© Descendants of Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker
Letters to Thiselton-Dyer
The Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
English
Original MS
5 page letter over 2 folios
 

JDH compliments Sir William Turner Thiselton-Dyer for his article on [William Botting] Hemsley. JDH finds that he is unable to satisfactorily fulfil WTTD's request to write down his memories of Robert Brown as Brown was always a very reticent friend. Hooker particularly recalls failing to persuade Brown into conversation about the latter's time on [Captain Mathew] Flinders voyage, even though JDH knew the place in Risdon, Tasmania where Brown had lived at that time. JDH does go on to recount his friendship with Brown from their first meeting in the 1830s in Glasgow. He recalls Brown taking 30 years to provide a requested specimen of Eriophorum alpinum from the bog of Forfar & gifting JDH with a copy of his work PRODROMUS FLORAE NOVAE HOLLANDIAE ET INSULAE VAN DIEMEN, asking JDH to fill some of Joseph Banks' jars with orchids for preservation in an experimental liquid, & always putting off helping JDH identify Tasmanian plants from the HMS 'Erebus' voyage. Brown was also notoriously reluctant to share herbarium specimens, for example when a set of Tierra Del Fuego plants was requested through Captain [Philip Parker] King. Brown unsuccessfully requested that [Sir John] Barrow fund the publication of the botany & zoology of the Erebus' voyage to Antarctica. It was [John] McClelland who secured the money from [Sir Robert] Peel. Brown gave no aid in the struggle to secure maintenance for RBG Kew & threatened to quarrel over Sir William Jackson Hooker's 'candidature' [for Director of RBG Kew?]. Brown was upset by the reformations to the Linnean Society & its move to Burlington House from Soho Square, where it had been holding Brown's unexamined collections. JDH asks if Lismacea has flourished. He reports he has had bad eczema on his back.

Transcript

Linnean Society accepted the Government's offer of accommodation in Burlington House, & gave up its apartments in Soho Square, the largest of which was occupied by Brown's huge collections; the great proportion of which consisted of bundles that had never been opened & were[?] never even described. He spoke bitterly to me on the part I took in the reorganization of the Society's rules, meetings, publications, open discussions &c &c. He did not long survive it. Peace to his ashes.
I hope that Harriet*16 keeps fairly well, best love to her & Frances*17.
Has Lismacea flourished? I have plenty more if she wants some.
I have had a very bad month of eczema all over the back, but am better now.
Ever affectionately | Jos D Hooker [signature]

Page 1

*1*2 Dec[embe]r 19 1909
THE CAMP, NEAR SUNNINGDALE.*3
My dear Dyer*4,
I was very glad to see your excellent article on [William Botting] Hemsley*5, which must have been very gratifying to him.
I have had your request that I should record my memories of R[obert]. Brown*6 ever since you made it, but have quite failed to indite any thing worth notice. Of all the friends I ever had he was the most persistently reticent, whether in conversation or correspondence, nothing could induce him to open his mind. On many occasions I tried to obtain from him some details of his voyage with [Captain Matthew] Flinders*7. Though I told him that I had passed some weeks at Risdon, Tasmania on the very spot where

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he had lived I could not get him to ask me a question about the place or the Island!
It was very early in the 30's that I first saw Brown; he was on a visit to my father in Glasgow, I was a boy of 14 or 15 I suppose. I remember him as a quite old gentleman busily engaged all day in selecting specimens for my father's duplicate American & other plants. I was forming a herbarium of Scotch plants, & was most anxious to get a specimen of the extinct Eriophorum Alpinum, which Brown had collected in the Bog of Forfar*8. He promised me one, but though reminded at intervals it was nearly 30 years before he gave it me.
Evidently wrapped in the paper in which he put it aside for me so many years before.

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I next saw him when fitting out for the Antarctic, he received me very kindly gave me a copy of the 'Prodromus'*9 & a case with 4 huge glass-stopped jars that had been round the world with [Joseph] Banks*10, requesting me to fill them with Orchids immersed in a special fluid -- but the fluid proved a failure & the plants deliquesced.
On my return he never asked me a single question about the Erebus*11 its Captain or officers or the places we had visited.
I repeatedly brought to him specimens of Tasmanian plants begging him to confirm my identification with species of the Podromus, but this he always put off doing, & except Eriophorum Alpinum I never saw a plant of his Herbarium.
When describing the [Tierra del] Fuegion plants Capt[ain] King*12 requested me to include his collections, referring me to Brown for a set of them, but belonged to himself (King). Brown refused to give them over.

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or even show them to me till King, who was very angry sent him an order to do so.
On the return of the Antarctic Brown most kindly endeavored to obtain from the Admiralty a grant for the publication of the Botany & was cruelly smashed by his old friend Sir John Barrow*13 (the Secretary) who hinted that he wanted to precipitate[?] a job! Happening to mention this to Dear McClelland*14 the latter said, it is too bad, I will go to Peel*15, which he did, & Peel gave at once £1080[?] each for Botany & Geolog[y].
During the long struggle for the maintenance of Kew Brown gave no aid, & when my father told him of his candidature all he said was "I hope that we shall not quarrel". This was very natural when it is considered how many years Kew he was more or less personally interested in the Gardens.
It was a sad time for poor Brown, when

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Linnean Society accepted the Government's offer of accommodation in Burlington House, & gave up its apartments in Soho Square, the largest of which was occupied by Brown's huge collections; the great proportion of which consisted of bundles that had never been opened & were[?] never even described. He spoke bitterly to me on the part I took in the reorganization of the Society's rules, meetings, publications, open discussions &c &c. He did not long survive it. Peace to his ashes.
I hope that Harriet*16 keeps fairly well, best love to her & Frances*17.
Has Lismacea flourished? I have plenty more if she wants some.
I have had a very bad month of eczema all over the back, but am better now.
Ever affectionately | Jos D Hooker [signature]

ENDNOTES


1. 'TELEGRAMS WINDLESHAM' printed at top left.
2. Handwritten annotation recording the letter as 'an[swere]d 19.XII.'09'.
3. The Camp, Sunningdale, Berks. The Hookers' country retreat to which Hooker permanently retired after leaving Kew.
4. Sir William 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 also married Hooker's eldest daughter Harriet in 1877.
5. William Botting Hemsley (1843--1924). British botanist and 1909 Victoria Medal of Honour recipient. Started work at the Royal Botanic Gardens in 1860 as an Improver, then as an Assistant for India in the Herbarium, finally Keeper of the Herbarium and Library.
6. Robert Brown (1773--1858). Scottish botanist and palaeobotanist who made important contributions to botany largely through his pioneering use of the microscope. His contributions include one of the earliest detailed descriptions of the cell nucleus and cytoplasmic streaming; the observation of Brownian motion; early work on plant pollination and fertilisation, including being the first to recognise the fundamental difference between gymnosperms and angiosperms; and some of the earliest studies in palynology. He also made numerous contributions to plant taxonomy, including the creation of a number of plant families that are still accepted today; and numerous Australian plant genera and species, the fruit of his exploration of that continent with Matthew Flinders.
7. Captain Matthew Flinders RN (1774--1814). English navigator and cartographer, the first to circumnavigate Australia and identify it as a continent. He made three voyages to the southern ocean (August 1791 to August 1793, February 1795 to August 1800 and July 1801 to October 1810). In the second voyage, George Bass and Flinders confirmed that Van Diemen's Land (now Tasmania) was an island. In the third voyage, he circumnavigated the mainland of what was to be called Australia. Flinders' health had suffered, however, and although he reached home in 1810, he did not live to see the publication of his widely praised book and atlas, A Voyage to Terra Australis.
8. The Bog of Forfar, or Bog of Pitkennedy, between Loch Lomond and the town of Forfar. Now drained.
9. Brown R. (1810) Prodromus Florae Novae Hollandiae et Insulae Van Diemen (Prodromus of the Flora of New Holland and Van Diemen's Land). A flora of Australia written by botanist Robert Brown and published in 1810. Often referred to as Prodromus Flora Novae Hollandiae, or by its standard botanical abbreviation Prodr. Fl. Nov. Holland. It was the first attempt at a survey of the Australian flora. It described over 2040 species, over half of which were published for the first time
10. Sir Joseph Banks, 1st Baronet (1743--1820). English naturalist and botanist, held the position of President of the Royal Society for over 41 years. He advised King George III on the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and by sending botanists around the world to collect plants, he made Kew the world's leading botanical gardens.
11. HMS Erebus was a Hecla-class bomb vessel constructed by the Royal Navy in 1826. The vessel was named after the dark region in Hades of Greek mythology called Erebus. After two years' service in the Mediterranean Sea, the Erebus was refitted as an exploration vessel for Antarctic service, and on 21 November 1840, captained by James Clark Ross, and with J. D. Hooker as ship's surgeon, she departed from Tasmania for Antarctica in company with HMS Terror. In January 1841, the crew of both ships landed on Victoria Land, and proceeded to name areas of the landscape after British politicians, scientists, and acquaintances. Mount Erebus, on Ross Island, was named after one ship and Mount Terror after the other. The ship was abandoned during the Franklin Expedition in 1848 and rediscovered in a submerged state in September 2014 after a long search. IN 1992 the wreck site was designated the Erebus and Terror National Historic Site of Canada.
12. Captain, later Admiral Phillip Parker King (1791 -- 1856). An early explorer of the Australian and Patagonian coasts.
13. Sir John Barrow (1764--1845). Second Secretary to the Admiralty (1804--1845), Barrow was a great promoter of Arctic voyages of discovery, including those of John Ross, William Edward Parry, James Clark Ross, and John Franklin. The Barrow Strait in the Canadian Arctic as well as Point Barrow and the city of Barrow in Alaska are named after him.
14. John McClelland (1805--1883). Interim Superintendent of Calcutta Botanic Garden 1846--1848. Though JDH varies his spelling of this name throughout the correspondence the correct spelling is McClelland.
15. Sir Robert Peel (1788--1850). British statesman and member of the Conservative Party, served as Prime Minister from 10 December 1834 to 8 April 1835, and again from 30 August 1841 to 29 June 1846.
16. Harriet Anne Thiselton-Dyer née Hooker (1854--1945). Oldest child of Joseph Hooker and his first wife Frances. Botanical illustrator and wife of William Turner Thiselton-Dyer. Her husband was Assistant Director of RBG Kew (1875--1885) and later Director (1885--1905), succeeding her father.
17. Frances Harriet Barnard née Thiselton-Dyer (1878--1851). Eldest child of Harriet Thiselton-Dyer nee Hooker and William Thiselton-Dyer. Granddaughter of Joseph Dalton Hooker. She was names after her late maternal grandmother Frances Harriet Hooker nee Henslow. She married Leonard William Barnard in 1912.

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