24 INTRODUCTION 



Trustees of .500, was soon sextupled. It speaks volumes for 

 the popularity, reputation, and energy of the new Professor of 

 Chemistry and Botany that the money came in so promptly 

 that on May i, the day of his inaugural lecture, he was able to 

 announce over ^1,600 in addition to the ^500.* 



Charles Giles Bridle Daubeny was thirty-nine years old when 

 he was appointed on February 8, i834,t to his second chair 

 by the Electors, the President and Fellows of the Royal 

 College of Physicians. In appointing him they no doubt felt 

 that they could not go wrong in taking an Oxford man with a 

 European reputation for his books on Volcanoes and on the 

 Atomic Theory, who had, moreover, only a month or two 

 before, imparted to the Linnean Society the results of im- 

 portant research on the " Selection exercised by plants, 

 with regard to the earthy constituents presented to their 

 absorbing surface," who had given an excellent account of 

 the Irritability of Plants to the Ashmolean Society, and who 

 had made an important contribution to Walker's " Flora of 

 Oxfordshire."* 



It would take too much space here to rehearse his report 

 upon the shortcomings of the Garden, his story of useless 

 green-houses without top light and out of repair, of extravagant 

 management, neglected herbaria, damp books, but the 

 attention of those in power may well be drawn to his pietas 

 in carrying out the express enjoinders of the Statute relating to 

 the Sherardian Professorship, and also those of the benefactor 

 John Sibthorp, viz. that a portion of the Garden should be 

 devoted to plants employed in Medicine, Agriculture, or the 



* Of a total of 2,974 8s. iod., private subscribers gave 1,618 : 

 1,914 6s. lod. was spent on the Garden and 1,000 on the Library and 

 Collections Building. 



f But by bureaucratic oversight he was not formally elected by the 

 University until June 25, 1840. .' 



J For a bibliography of Dr. Daubeny's works see the author's " History 

 of the Daubeny Laboratory," Appendix D, 



