xii INTRODUCTION 



was made into a " Physic " Garden in 1760, and 

 was the small beginning from which the great 

 Royal Botanic Gardens grew. 1 The " Physic 

 Garden " at Kew House was simply a scientific 

 collection of herbaceous plants arranged by a 

 pupil of Philip Miller's according to the new 

 Linnaean system. 



There the name " physic " was soon lost, and 

 the Oxford Physic Garden had already become 

 the " Botanical Garden." But the old label 

 stuck fast to the Chelsea Garden naturally - 

 for it was maintained by the Apothecaries. 



The books on which the following history 

 chiefly depends are Faulkner's History of Chel- 

 sea, 1829; Field and Semple's Memoirs of the 

 Botanic Garden at Chelsea, 1878, and Barrett's 

 History of the Society of Apothecaries, 1905. 

 But other works of interest have been con- 

 sulted. The British Museum Library has 

 been thankfully used, both at Bloomsbury and 

 at its Natural History branch in Kensington. 



A " Life of Sir Hans Sloane," to whom the 

 long existence of the Physic Garden is chiefly 

 due, occupies forty-five pages of Faulkner's 

 History of Chelsea. There is a concise account 

 of him in the Dictionary of National Biography, 

 by Sir Norman Moore, who lately occupied 

 Sloane 's Chair as President of the College of 

 Physicians. There is a long but readable 

 biography in By Chelsea Reach, by Reginald 

 Blunt ; another in Munt's Roll of the College 

 of Physicians ; and the diary of Sloane 's 

 critical caretaker, Howard, is quoted in The 

 Greatest House in Chelsea, by Randall Davies. 



1 A. W. Hill, F.R.S., Annals of Missouri Botanical Garden, 1919. 



