212 



NATURE 



IJiily ir, 1872 



and the heavy drain upon his father's purse which his unexampled 

 educalion as a botanist involved, constituted the discipline u liich 

 made him the man he now is. liut we think it higldy dLsiialjle 

 that you and ICngland sliould know as mucli of his career as will 

 enable you to decide whether its arbitrary interruption by your 

 First Commissioner be creditable to the Government cji' tins 

 country. 



In 1S55, Sir William Hooker being then seventy years of age, 

 Dr. Hooker was appointed his Assistant-Director, at a salary of 

 400/. a year, v.fitliout a house ; and from tliis time his share in 

 the duties of the (harden were added to his more purely scieniific 

 ones. In 1S58 his salary was increased to 500/. a year, with a 

 liouse, and in 1S65, on the death of his father, he succeeded to 

 the Directorship without an assistant. 



The liberality of his father and his own self-denying life in the 

 public service have, we think, been sufficiently iUustrated. We 

 will therefore ask permission to place before you only one addi ■ 

 tional specimen of his conduct. As re^'ards the Floras of Asia, 

 Africa, and America, the Herbarium at Kew had been lon^j un- 

 rivalled. Europe, however, was but scantily represented. Three 

 years ago, a collection embracing the very flora needed for the 

 completion of Kew was offered for sale in Paris. At his own 

 private cost, Dr. Hooker pnichased this collection for 400/., and 

 presented it to the Kew Heibarium. 



His income at Kew is 800/. a year, and here is one-half of it 

 voluntarily devoted to the establishment which it had been the 

 continual object of his father and himself to raise to the highest 

 possible perfection. Had these things been known to the Parlia- 

 ment and public of England, the First Commissioner of Works 

 would, we imagine, have hardly ventured to inflict upon the 

 Director of Kew the unnecessary toil, worry, indignity, and 

 irredeemable loss of time against which this memorial is a re- 

 monstrance. 



Under the auspices of his father and himself, Kew Gardens 

 have expanded from 15 to 300 acres. They have long held the 

 foremost rank in Europe. In no particular does England stand 

 more conspicuously superior to all other countries than in the 

 possession of Kew. The es'ablishmcnt is not only without a 

 rival, but there is no approach to rivalry as regards the extent, 

 importance, or scientific results of its operations. Upwanls of 

 130 volumes on all branches of botany, including a most impor- 

 tant series of Colonial Floras, but excluding many weighty con- 

 tributions to scientific societies and Journals, have been issued 

 from Kew. To these are to be added guide-books and official 

 papers. This vast literature has been produced and published 

 through the efforts of the directors of Kew, for the most part at 

 no expense whatever to the nation. 



To these labours is to be added the correspondence of the 

 directors with all parts of the world, a mere selection from which, 

 now bound together at Kew, embraces some 40,000 letters ad- 

 dressed to the directors, and for the most part answered with 

 their own hands. 



Of the popularity of the Gardens, which has been attained 

 without prejudice to their scientific use and reputation, it need 

 oidy be stated that from g,ooo visitors in 1841, the numbers have 

 risen to an average of nearly 600,000 a year. What they have 

 done towards the elevation and refinement of the tastes and con- 

 duct of the working classes may be inferred from the fact that 

 last Whit Monday 37,795 visitors entered and quitted the Gar- 

 dens without a single case of drunkenness, riot, theft, or mis- 

 chief of any kind being reported. 



Since Dr. Hooker's accession the Gardens have been to a great 

 extent remodelled, and the establishment wholly reorganised. A 

 great saving in outlay has thus been effected, without any sacri- 

 fice of efficiency. During the ten years from 1S63 to 1S72 in- 

 clusive, the annual number of living; plants sent from Kew to 

 various jiarts of the world has been doubled, amounting on an 

 average to eight or nine thousand annually. Of seeds ripened at 

 Kew, or obtained by the director from various parts of the world, 

 the annual average distributed amounts to about seven thousand. 



Of the practical value of these labours, the introduction of 

 the Cinchona plant into India, Ceylon, and Jamaica, the com- 

 mercial success of which is established, constitutes one of many 

 illustrations. The introduction of Ipecacuanha is another. This 

 will be corroborated by Her Majesty's Secretaries of State for 

 India and the Colonies. We would add, that there is scarcely a 

 horticultural establishment at home or abroad which wouKi not 

 be willing to acknowledge its indebtedness to Kew. 



In India upwards of thirty gardeneis trained at Kew are now 

 employed in forestry, cotton, tea, and cinchona plantations. 



Government gardens, &c., and a far greater number are usefully 

 em]3loyed in other parts of the world. 



IJy the joint eflorts of the directors, a series of complete 

 Floras of India and the Colonies was set on foot at Kew, of which 

 those of the West Indies, all the Australian Colonies, New Zea- 

 land, Tropical Africa, the Cape Colonies, and British India are 

 completed or in progress. These are standard woiks of in- 

 estimable value in the countries whose plants they describe, as 

 well as to scientific travellers and institutions in Europe. 



We have hitherto confined ourselves to a statement of Dr. 

 Hooker's services in relation to Kew, and have said nothing of 

 his labours in geology, meteorology, and other sciences, nor of 

 his researches while Botanist of the Geological Survey. During 

 his single year of ofiice he contributed to the Records of the Sur- 

 vey two memoirs, which are to be regarded as landmarks in tlie 

 history of fossil botany. In presenting the Royal medal to Dr. 

 Hooker in 1854, the president of the Royal Society spoke of 

 these memoirs as " one of the most important contributions ever 

 made to fossil botany." We may add a reference to his adven- 

 turous explorations of the northern frontier of India, in regions 

 never visited by a European before or since. 



It is not likely that a man of these antecedents, accustomed to 

 the respect which naturally follows merit of the most exalted 

 kind, would in any way expose himself, and more especially 

 in matters relating to the w-elfare of Kew, to the just censure of his 

 official superiors. Until the advent of the present First Com- 

 missioner, he had never been the object of a censure, and was 

 never interfered with in the practical discharge of his duties by 

 the Board of Works. His proposals and suggestions were 

 rightly scrutinised, and his estimates regulated by the opinions 

 of the Board, but the current duties were left entirely to his con- 

 duct and supervision ; the extension and inrprovement of the 

 establishment being always the origination and work of the 

 Director. 



With this sketch of the early training of Dr. Hooker for his 

 present post before you, you will be able to compare with it the 

 early training of Mr. Ayrton for the position which, by your 

 favour, he occupies as Dr. Hooker's master. Von will be able 

 to judge how far the First Commissioner is justified in treating 

 the Director of Kew with personal contumely, and in rudely up- 

 setting the arrangements which he had made with reference to 

 the invaluable collections for which he is responsible, not to Mr. 

 Ayrton alone, but to his conscience and his country. 



Neither you, Sir, nor the English public have forgotten the 

 speech of the First Commissioner on presenting himself for re- 

 election at the Tower Hamlets, when he went out of his way to 

 insult "architects, sculptors, and gardeners." That speech was 

 a warning to every cultivated man who held office under the 

 Board of Works, and it was, as you know, duly laid to heart by 

 the Director of Kew. His desire to avoid all cause of offence 

 was thus expressed in a letter addressed to yourself on August 

 31, 1871 : — "Having regard to the tenor of the sentiments Mr. 

 Ayrton is reported to have expressed in public on accepting 

 office, I felt it incumbent on me to be especially circumspect in 

 my conduct and demeanour under his rule." 



Circumspection, imder the circumstances, was of small avail, 

 and one of Mr. Ayrton's first acts, after taking ofiice, was to 

 send a reprimand to Dr. Hooker. It was a new experience to 

 the Director of Kew. During his thirty years of public service 

 such a thing had never once occurred ; indeed, the very reverse 

 of it had always occurred, tl>e respect due to intellectual eminence 

 and moral worth having been always cheerfully accorded to Dr. 

 Hooker by his official superiors. This first reprimand of his 

 life was, moreover, not due to any fault of his, but arose entirely 

 from the First Commissioner's own misconception. 



The responsibility of the warming and ventilation of the plant- 

 houses had, by special order, devolved upon the Director. After 

 a searching inquiry. Dr. Hooker had been entrusted by a pre- 

 vious P'irst Commissioner with the task of remodelling the heating 

 apparatus throughout the establishment ; and this led to the 

 construction at Kew, in accordance with the Director's plans and 

 estimates, of the most complete range of hot-houses for scientific 

 purposes in existence. In 1S71, however, he accidentally dis- 

 covered that he had been superseded in the duty, without notice 

 given or reason assigned. He wrote a respectful letter of in- 

 (piiry to the First Commissioner, and received the short — we are 

 jjersuaded you wUl agiee with us in adding, insolent — intimation 

 that he had been superseded, and would have " to govern him- 

 self accordingly." 



He woidd^in our opinion, have been equally unfaithful to the 



