CHAPTER VI 



Sir Joseph Banks as a boy at Physic Garden, fishing with Lord 

 Sandwich ; at Eton and Oxford ; sails with Captain Cook in 

 1768 ; collects plants in Botany Bay ; typical old-world natural- 

 ist ; brings back lava from Iceland for rockery in Physic Garden. 

 Stanesby Alchorne contributes stones from Tower of London. 

 Banks and Solander present seeds. Forsyth, gardener. 

 Curtis, demonstrator. The Botanical Magazine. Additional 

 tax on Apothecaries. Botanical excursions. Thomas Wheeler, 

 demonstrator ; successful teacher ; long life. John Lindley, 

 professor and demonstrator, 1835, teaches " natural " system of 

 botany. " Artificial " system of Linnasus only a link in chain of 

 attempts at a " natural system." Lindley's energy. Robert 

 Fortune, curator, leaves Garden to introduce tea into India. 

 Expense of the Garden. Professorship abolished in 1853. 

 Labourers discharged to reduce expenditure. Nathaniel Ward 

 introduces " Wardian cases " ; attempts to revive Garden. 

 " Wardian cases " used throughout world. 



IN a large house near the east corner of the 

 Physic Garden, young Joseph Banks lived with 

 his mother, and learnt the names of plants in 

 the Garden. He was fond of fishing in 

 Chelsea Reach, and would sometimes pass 

 whole days at his favourite sport with an older 

 and more cunning fisherman, the fourth Earl 

 of Sandwich. 



Faulkner the invaluable Chelsea historian 

 who, from his little bookshop in Paradise 

 Row, must have often seen Sir Joseph Banks in 

 later life, relates that " even during the night, 

 as the fish were supposed to bite with a keener 

 appetite, they " (Lord Sandwich and Banks) 

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