1915] 



HILL BOTANIC GAKDENS 205 



The appointment of Philip Miller,^ in 1723, as Head Gard- 

 ener, is an important event in the history of the Garden, both 

 for the value of his services to the Garden itself and for his 

 widespread influence on botany and horticulture. 



At the time of Miller's appointment, exotic plants were 

 pouring in from every clime under the patronage of a general 

 taste for their acquisition. Hothouses were multiplying and 

 their inhabitants accumulating to a hitherto unheard-of ex- 

 tent, and a man of Miller 's practical skill and botanical knowl- 

 edge was needed not only to demonstrate his skill, but also to 

 impart his knowledge for the use of others. From his 'Dic- 

 tionary' it can be seen that many plants were grown and 

 flowered at Chelsea for the first time under cultivation. 



William Alton (1731-1793), the first Curator of the Royal 

 Gardens at Kew, was a pupil under Miller at Chelsea, nor 

 must Nathaniel Bagshaw Ward, Examiner to the Society of 

 Apothecaries from 1836 to 1854, the inventor of Wardian 

 cases, be forgotten. His invention made possible the intro- 

 duction of the tea plant to India by Robert Fortune (Curator 

 of the Chelsea Garden, 1846-1848), of Cinchona from South 

 America to Kew by Markham, and thence to India, and of 

 many other valuable products to botanic gardens which have 

 subsequently been disseminated for the use of mankind. Not 

 the least useful of the activities of the Chelsea Physic Garden 

 were the herborizing excursions around London, under the 

 charge of the Demonstrator of Plants, which were maintained 

 for some two hundred years. The Physic Garden has suffered 

 many vicissitudes in the course of its existence, and towards 

 the end of the last century almost ceased to exist, but for- 

 tunately a new arrangement for its maintenance was made 

 in 1899.^ Reorganized under the new scheme and with its 

 modern greenhouses and laboratory, the Chelsea Garden has 

 entered on a sphere of usefulness in connection with the teach- 

 ing of botany and the provision of material and opportunity 



^Charles Miller, son of Philip (who had aided in the selection of the site), 

 ■was made first Curator of the original Cambridge University Botanical Garden 

 founded in 17(52. 



'The Chelsea Physic Garden. First Report of Committee of Management, 

 1905, with plan of the Garden in 1753. 



