SIR JOSEPH DALTON HOOKER, O. M., G. @. S. RB Ress 
1817-1911. 
[With 1 plate.] 
By Lieut. Col. D. Prary, ©. M. G., F. R. S. 
Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. 
? 
The most distinguished son of a very distinguished father, Joseph 
Dalton Hooker, was born at Halesworth, in Suffolk, on June 30, 1817. 
Early in 1820 his father was appointed by the Crown to fill the chair 
of botany in the University of Glasgow, a post which he held until, 
in 1841, he became director of the Royal Gardens at Kew. As a 
consequence Hooker was educated in Glasgow, passing through the 
high schooi to the university, from which he obtained the degree of 
M. D. in 1839. Devoted as a lad to the reading of works of travel, 
we learn from Hooker himself that he was especially impressed by 
Turner’s description of the Himalayan Peak of Chumlari, and by the 
account of the Antarctic island of Kerguelen contained in Cook’s 
voyages. An opportunity of investigating the latter came to him 
very early in his career. When he completed his medical studies, 
Hooker entered the Royal Navy as an assistant surgeon, and was 
gazetted to the Erebus, then about to start, along with the Terror, 
on the famous Antarctic expedition led by the eminent navigator Sir 
James Clark Ross. Throughout this expedition the young assistant 
surgeon held the post of botanist, and during its three years’ cruise in 
the southern seas he was able to visit New Zealand, Australia, 
Tasmania, Kerguelen, Tierra del Fuego, and the Falkland Islands, 
amassing large collections and acquiring a vast amount of botanical 
information. 2 
Shortly after the close of this expedition, Hooker, in 1843, became 
assistant to Graham, then professor of botany in the University of 
Edinburgh, and in 1845, when Graham was succeeded by the elder 
Balfour, Hooker was appointed botanist to the geological survey of 
Great Britain. Much of his time during this period was devoted to 
the preparation for publication of the results obtained during the 
course of his Antarctic voyages. But in 1847 this work was tem- 
porarily suspended, and his appointment on the geological survey was 
1 Reprinted by permission from Nature, London, Dee. 21, 1911, No. 2199. 
659 
