42 THE JOURNAL OF BOTANY 



during his long connection with the Herbarium of the Eoyal 

 Gardens, was presented to Mr. John Gilbert Baker, one of the 

 oldest surviving contributors to this Journal, of which he was at 

 one time assistant editor. The Morning Post of the following 

 day published an account of an interview with Mr. Baker, from 

 which we take the following autobiographical details: — 



" I come of a family of yeomen farmers who were Quakers, 

 and I was born at Guisborough, in Yorkshire, where my father 

 was a general merchant. My earliest recollections are of the 

 quiet little country town of Thirsk, to whicli my father removed 

 his business when I was only six months old. At the age of nine 

 I was sent to the Quaker school at Ackworth, where I remained 

 for three years, at the end of which time I was transferred to 

 another Quaker school, that of York. Among my schoolfellows 

 at York were Joseph Rowntree, the founder of the well-known 

 cocoa business, John Rowntree, his brother, Henry Seebohm, 

 who became famous as an ethnologist [ornithologist] , and two 

 other brothers, George and Henry Brady, both of whom after- 

 wards became Fellows of the Royal Society, a distinction which 

 was conferred on myself as long ago as the year 1875. The 

 Quaker school at York was a capital place. The discipline was 

 mild, which was not the case, I believe, at most of the schools in 

 my youthful days, and above all special attention was given to 

 the natural science which soon became my delight. Of course, 

 at the time of which I speak, that is to say early in Queen 

 Victoria's reign, scientific study was not nearly so widespread as 

 it is now. My school was the first to institute a Nature Study 

 Society, and to this practically all the boys belonged. We used 

 Babington's Manual, an excellent book of its kind, though costly 

 according to present notions, and we used to go botanising in 

 our leisure time in the fields round about the old Cathedral 

 city. I entered into the pursuit with such enthusiasm that 

 before I had been at the school twelve months I won a prize for 

 the best collection of plants, and was thereupon made curator of 

 our little herbarium. The Headmaster, Mr. John Ford, was not, 

 so far as I am aware, specially devoted to scientific study, but 

 several of the teachers were ardent botanists. I left school at the 

 age of fourteen and went into my father's business, where I 

 remained for eighteen years. During that time I was not wholly 

 engrossed in commercial pursuits. 



" All my spare time was employed in studying botany, and 

 during this period of my career I wrote my book entitled North 

 Yorkshire : Studies of its Botany, Geology, Climate, and Physical 

 Geography. This was published by Messrs. Longmans, and a 

 second edition was brought out in 1906 by the Yorkshire 

 Naturalists' Union. Three years after this work was published I 

 received a communication which changed the whole current of my 

 life. It was a letter from Sir Joseph Hooker, who had recently 

 been appointed Director of Kew Gardens in succession to his 

 father. Sir William, and in it he offered me the post of First 

 Assistant at the Herbarium under Professor Daniel Oliver. Sir 



