WILLIAM JACKSON HOOKER. 1 



Sir William Jackson Hookek died at Kew, after a 

 short illness, on the 12th of August last, in the eighty-first 

 year of his age. 



Seldom, if ever before, has the death of a botanist been so 

 widely felt as a personal sorrow, so extended were his rela- 

 tions, and so strongly did he attach himself to all who knew 

 him. By the cultivators of botany in our own country, at 

 least, this statement will not be thought exaggerated. Al- 

 though few of our botanists ever had the privilege of person- 

 ally knowing him, there are none who are not much indebted 

 to him, either directly or indirectly. It is fitting, therefore, 

 that some record of his life and tribute to his memory should 

 appear upon the pages of the "American Journal of Science." 



The incidents of his life are soon told. He was born on 

 the 6th of July, 1785, at Norwich, England, where his father 

 — who survived to even a greater age than his distinguished 

 and only son — was at that period confidential clerk in a 

 large business establishment. He was descended from the 

 same family with " the Judicious Hooker," author of the 

 " Ecclesiastical Polity." The name William Jackson was 

 that of our botanist's cousin and god-father, who died young, 

 and was soon followed by both his parents ; in consequence 

 of which their estate of Sea-salter, near Canterbury, came to 

 young Hooker while yet a lad at the Norwich High School. 

 He could therefore indulge the taste which he early developed 

 for natural history, at this time mainly for ornithology. But 

 the chance discovery of that rare and curious moss, Bvxbau- 

 mia aphylla, which he took to his eminent townsman Sir 

 James Edward Smith, directed his attention to botany, and 

 fixed the bent of his long and active life. He now made ex- 

 1 American Journal of Science and Arts, 2 ser., xli. 1. (1800.) 



