SIB W. J. HOOKER AT GLASGOW 11 



and chief power in the official world of English science, he was 

 appointed by the Crown in 1820 to the newly founded Chair of 

 Botany in Glasgow, in succession to Dr. Graham, 1 who, after 

 occupying it a couple of years from its foundation, had been 

 appointed to Edinburgh. 



Here Sir William met with immediate and striking success. 

 He established a flourishing school of botany ; raised the infant 

 botanical garden to the front rank, supplying it, and his her- 

 barium with the products of every country with which the 

 trading community of Glasgow was in touch. The experience 

 gathered in Glasgow prepared his signal success in after .years 

 at Kew. Here, therefore, his sons grew up in an atmosphere 

 of natural science, whether class- work or field-work, of long- 

 drawn and unceasing industry, of contact with distinguished 

 workers in natural history in general and botany in particular. 



The Professor [writes Prof. F. 0. Bower in his Com- 

 memorative Oration] had established himself in Woodside 

 Crescent, conveniently near to the garden, and doubtless 

 his little son was familiar with it and its contents from 

 childhood. He grew up in an atmosphere surcharged with 

 the very science he was to do so much to advance. 

 His father's home was the scene of manifold activities. 

 It housed a rapidly growing private herbarium and 

 museum. It was there that the drawings were made to illus- 

 trate the amazing stream of descriptive works which Sir 

 William was then producing. New species must have been 

 almost daily under examination, often as living specimens. 

 Between the garden and the house the boy must have 

 witnessed constantly, during the most receptive years of 

 childhood, the working of an establishment that was at 

 that time without its equal in this country, or probably in 

 any other. The eye and memory will have been trained 

 almost unconsciously. A knowledge of plants would be 



1 Robert Graham (1786-1845), M.D. He practised some years in Glasgow, 

 and in 1818, when a separate chair of botany was established at the University, 

 was appointed the first professor. In 1820 he became regius professor at 

 Edinburgh, being succeeded at Glasgow by Sir William Hooker, with whom 

 he had a scientific and personal friendship. Joseph Hooker, in turn, was within 

 a little of succeeding him at Edinburgh, for he remained a close friend of the 

 Hookers, often joining in Sir William's botanical excursions, and when he fell 

 ill in 1846, he secured Joseph Hooker as his substitute and prospective successor. 



