61 



JOUBXAL- OF HOETICULTUBE AXD COTTAGE GABDEXEB, 



t July 18, 1S72. 



have been led to compare the liberal speeches and professions of 

 the First Commissioner, who still honours them by his choice, 

 "with his official acts — in the matter, for example, of open 

 spaces ; and who have begun to entertain serious doubts as to 

 the indispensable connection between unmannerly rudeness and 

 the insolence of office, and the qualities which should recom- 

 mend a candidate to the preference of a popular constituency. 

 At a general election it is a salutary custom to overhaul the 

 "antecedents" and careers of intending representatives. "Tou 

 will be able," say these memorialists to the Premier, " with 

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

 post before you, to compare it with the early training of Mr. 

 Ayrton for the position which, by your favour, he occupies as 

 Dr. Hooker's master. Tou will be able to judge how far the 

 First Commissioner is justified in treating the Director of Kew 

 with personal contumely." The comparison, so far as it relates 

 to Dr. Hooker, is one that does honour to his country and to 

 science. It may be well to summarise very briefly the history 

 of the botanical establishment at Kew, and the biography 

 of the Directors, father and son, who have been its virtual 

 creators. 



It was in 1S40 that the private Botanic Gardens at Kew were 

 handed over by Her Majesty to the nation. In accordance with 

 the Eeport of a Koya-1 Commission the present scientific 

 establishment was founded, and the late Sir William Hooker, 

 then Professor of Botany in the University of Glasgow, offered, 

 " at a sacrifice of more than half his income," to undertake its 

 superintendence. His salary was to be £300 a-year. He brought 

 with him his own -excellent private herbarium and scientific 

 library, and the expense of maintaining and increasing both 

 was defrayed by the Director. Unaided by the Government 

 beyond a grant of £200 to provide room for his invaluable col- 

 lections, Sir 'William Hooker made his house the most extensive 

 botanical laboratory in this country, and within ten years after 

 his appointment Kew Gardens became " the first in the world." 

 With the collections made at his private cost, he founded the 

 first museum of the kind that had ever been established, and 

 never received a farthing of remuneration for his contributions. 

 His salary was gradually raised to £800 a-year, he was provided 

 with a house, and relieved of the double cost of maintaining the 

 herbarium and obtaining assistance in the discharge of its ex- 

 cessive labour, but he continued to bear- the cost Of books and of 

 new specimens, and for five and twenty years his purchases 

 were made and his collections elaborated at his own expense 

 and risk. Before his death he gave directions to have his her- 

 barium valued and offered to the Government at the lowest 

 valuation, and thus what " had previously been devoted to the 

 nation's use became the property of the nation itself." Such 

 were the antecedents and achievements of the first Director of 

 Kew Gardens. His son and successor, Dr. Joseph Hooker, has 

 vindicated by his own example the hereditary principle in a 

 manner which monarchies and aristocracies might envy. In 

 1839 he was appointed assistant surgeon and naturalist to the 

 Antarctic Expedition, " the most perilous, perhaps, that ever 

 sailed from these shores, and the scientific results of which ex- 

 ceeded in importance those of any other naval exploring expedi- 

 tion of this century." His pay was that of his medical officer's 

 rank. His outfit, his books, his instruments, the expenses of 

 travelling and collecting ashore during his four years' voyage of 

 circumnavigation, were defrayed by his father. On his return 

 he waived his claims to promotion, and devoted four additional 

 years to the classification and publication of the results of his 

 voyage, and aided his father as an unpaid volunteer at Kew. In 

 1817 he was sent in the interests of scientific exploration to 

 India]and to Borneo ; his outfit and instruments cost the Govern- 

 ment nothing; and all the incidental disbursements of his 

 three years' travelling and collecting amounted to £1200 more 

 than the official grant, and were contributed by his father and 

 himself. On his return from India he was again an " unpaid 

 volunteer " at Kew ; and from 1851 to 1860 he was employed by 

 the Admiralty in publishing the botanical discoveries of naval 

 and other voyages, receiving for this service £500 and three 

 years' pay as a naval surgeon. During three years laboriously 

 spent in arranging his Indian collections and publishing his 

 journals he received £400 a-year from the Government. The 

 expenses of scientific journeys to Western Asia, to North Africa, 

 and to various parts of Europe, were borne by himself, and the 

 results given to Kew. In 1855, his father being seventy years of 

 age, he was appointed Assistant-Director at £100 a-year without 

 a house ; his salary was increased three years later to £500, with 

 a house ; and in 1865 he succeeded, on the death of his father, 

 with the unanimous approbation of the whole world of science 

 at home and abroad, to the directorship at Kew. His salary was 

 fixed at £800 a-year, without a secretaiy or an assistant ; and of 

 one-half of this modest salary he made a free gift to his country 

 by purchasing in Paris at his own cost, and presenting to Kew, a 

 collection of European Flora which was wanted to make our 

 national herbarium complete. "Under the auspices of his 

 father and himself, Kew Gardens have expanded froni 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." This is 

 the testimony of such men as Sir Charles Lyell, Mr. Charles 

 Darwin, Professor Huxley, and Professor Tyndall. The opera- 

 tions and literature of the Kew establish m ent are unrivalled, and 

 they have been achieved, " for the most part, at no expense 

 whatever to the nation." The present Director has, to a great 

 extent, remodelled and reorganised the gardens, at "a great 

 saving in outlay, without any sacrifice of efficiency." The num- 

 ber of living plants sent to various parts of the world has been 

 doubled. India and the colonies bear witness to the commercial 

 value of Dr. Hooker's labours and discoveries. Kew has become 

 not only a nursery but the model school of universal horti- 

 culture. And yet Dr. Hooker's services in relation to Kew are 

 only a part of his contributions to science. Geology, meteor- 

 ology, as well as botany, count him as a master; and the Eoyal 

 Geographical Society as one of the most adventurous and fruit- 

 ful of explorers. 



Such is the man who by a concatenation of political influences 

 and events overwhich he could have no control, having had the 

 misfortune to become Mr. Ayrton's official subordinate, suddenly 

 found himself a butt for contumely, insult, arbitrary insolence, 

 and ignorance. One of the first of Mr. Ayrton's acts in office was 

 to send a reprimand to Dr. Hooker. " It was anew experience 

 to the Director of Kew " after thirty years of public service. 

 Intellectual eminence and moral worth appear to be as obnoxious 

 to the First Commissioner as those " architects, sculptors, and 

 gardeners," whom he stigmatised with a felicity as singular as 

 that which determined his own appointment. Mr. Ayrton has 

 left nothing unsaid or undone that could render Dr. Hooker's 

 position at Kew unendurable even with the moral support of 

 the scientific public and of his own conscience. Without notice 

 given or reason assigned he superseded him in the most im- 

 portant of his functions ; surreptitiously withdrew from him the 

 care and treatment of his collections and the plant houses ; tam- 

 pered clandestinely with the loyalty of his subordinates ; vir- 

 tually deprived him of authority and responsibility ; submitted 

 to the Treasury plans and estimates for extensive alterations in 

 the museum without consulting the Director, and involving a 

 large and detrimental expenditure; and, beyond habitual dis- 

 courtesy, introduced a policy into the management of the esta- 

 blishment subversive of discipline, and fraught with injury to 

 the public service. Unable to obtain anything but insult in 

 reply to his respectful letters of inquiry to the First Commis- 

 sioner, Dr. Hooker at length turned with extreme reluctance, 

 but with the fullest confidence, to the First Lord of the Treasury 

 for redress. Mr. Gladstone communicated with Mr. Ayrton, 

 and Mr. Ayrton requested Dr. Hooker to furnish him with dates, 

 proofs, and particulars of his grievances. He furnished them 

 in a letter, which was never answered, or even acknowledged, 

 by Mr. Ayrton. Finding that the Prime Minister was so easily 

 satisfied with Mr. Ayrton's explanations, and unwilling to intrude 

 the subject upon his attention, he begged to be put in communi- 

 cation with a private secretary. Accordingly, he had an inter- 

 view with a private secretary at the end of October, and about 

 Christmas was informed that a plan was under the considera- 

 tion of the Government which would materially alter his posi- 

 tion towards the First Commissioner of Works, and meanwhile 

 he was requested to take no steps likely to embarrass the Govern- 

 ment. So Dr. Hooker waited and waited till the last week of 

 February, and was then "semi-officially" informed that the 

 "plan" — whatever it may have been — was abandoned. Sub- 

 sequently the Prime Minister placed the matter in the hands of 

 the Marquis of Eipon, and on the 13th of March Dr. Hooker 

 handed in a memorandum to a committee of the Cabinet. On 

 the 13th of April Lord Eipon conveyed a verbal message to him 

 which was to be regarded as a final answer to his appeal. This 

 was to the effect that the Director was to be at the head of the 

 establishment at Kew, " of course in subordination to the First 

 Commissioner of Works." So that after all this weary waiting 

 for redress Dr. Hooker's position was not better but worse for 

 the delay; his authority was gone, his responsibilities super- 

 seded, his appeals unanswered, and his complaints ignored, and 

 Mr. Ayrton was to aU intents and purposes triumphant. Xo 

 wonder that Dr. Hooker was not content with a verbal announce- 

 ment,- which the private secretary was so anxious to define as " a 

 private and friendly communication," though it had previously 

 been described as " official and final." He was promised, how- 

 ever, a formal official answer. The answer was sent, and it was 

 substantially the f ormer verbal answer reduced to writing, and 

 signed, from Treasury Chambers, by the principal clerk. It 

 contained, however, one additional and unintelligible paragraph, 

 to the effect that the present form of estimate for Kew Gardens 

 could not be altered, but would be acted upon, and would " in 

 future be framed in accordance with the letter." Dr. Hooker, 

 being naturally somewhat puzzled by this Treasury logic, drew 

 up a memorandum, inquiring of their lordships how the power, 

 conferred by his original warrant of appointment, of preparing 

 the estimates for the different branches of the establishment, 

 was to be restored to him, and whether, in short, he was to be 



