83 



DEPARTMENTAL COMMITTEE ON BOTANICAL WORK : 



Sir W. 7. 



ThiscHon- 



Dyer, 



K.C.M.G., 

 F.R.S. 



29 Nov. 1900. 



your Lordships to the circumstances detailed in this letter, 

 and to express their earnest hope that your Lordships 

 will be pleased to issue such instructions as will secure to 

 The British Museum a fair portion of the collections 

 formed by the Government, and of which the Govern- 

 ment have the disposal. 



I have, etc, 

 (Signed) J. Winter Jones. 



The Right Honourable the Lords Commissioners 

 of the Admiralty. 



Royal Gardens, Kew. 



December 15, 1874. 



To the Secretary of the Admiralty. 



Sir,— Two letters, dated July 4th and 31st, 1874, ad- 

 dressed in the names of the Trustees of the British 

 Museum by the Principal Librarian thereof to the 

 Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty contain various 

 statements affecting this establishment, and implica- 

 tions of its having misappropriated Government 

 Botanical collections. 



Such business as these letters refer to is transacted by 

 the Standing Committee of the Trustees alone, which, in 

 accordance with precedent, directs the Principal Librarian 

 to correspond in the name of the whole body of 

 Trustees, and without reference to them. 



This circumstance in part only accounts for the fact, 

 that though myself a Trustee at the time, I was not made 

 aware that the business in question had even occupied the 

 attention of any of my co-trustees, and stiU less that it 

 had formed the subject of a correspondence with a depart- 

 ment of Government. My ignorance of this matter was 

 in fact absolute. Had I been informed of it, as I consider 

 I should have been, I have shown that the statements 

 alluded to were not supported, and that the implications 

 were baseless. 



I beg to forward herewith a copy of a letter which I 

 have addressed to the Principal Librarian on the subject, 

 which I have to request may be so placed in the records of 

 the Admiralty as that they may not he overlooked should 

 any future reference be made to the correspondence to 

 which they refer. 



It remains to state that I have received the assurance 

 of the Standing Committee and of the Principal Librarian, 

 that they had no intention whatever of conveying in the 

 letters in question any reflections upon this establish- 

 ment. 



Such being the case, and being further convinced that 

 the statements alluded to were received by the Standing 

 Committee without suspicion of their accuracy and their 

 intent, and were through inadvertence transmitted to 

 the Admiralty without reference being made to me, to- 

 gether with the promise that in future all correspondence 

 of a lite nature shall be laid before me, I have conlined 

 my action to the protest enclosed, and I would add that, 

 with the view of promoting that hermony which should 

 subsist 'between the British Museum and Royal Gardens, 

 and between them and the variois departments of Govern- 

 ment, I do not desire that further action should be taken 

 in the matter. 



I am, etc., 

 (Signed) J. D. Hooker. 



British Museum, 



March 2, 1876. 

 Sir, — The attention of the Trustees of the British 

 Mtiseum has recently been directed to the subject of 

 the collection of plants made in the voyage of the 

 "Erebus" and "Terror," under Captain Sir Jamea 

 Ross. 



These plants were sent to the British Museum by the 

 Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, and remained 

 in the charge of Mr. Robert Brown, the then Keeper of 

 the Botanical Department, until the month of May, 

 1844, when, on the application of Sir John Barrow, 

 who wrote by command of the Lords of the Admiralty, 

 Mr. Brown, with the permission of the Trustees, placed 

 them in your hands. The purpose for which the plants 

 were delivered to you is explained in the following 

 letter from Sir John Barrow,' dated the 26th of April, 

 ' 1844: — 



" I am commanded by my Lords Commissioners of the 

 Admiralty to request you will be so good as to deliver 

 to Dr. Joseph D. Hooker, who is charged with the pub- 



lication of the botany of the voyage of the "Erebus" 

 and ''Terror" the botanical specimens collected during; 

 that voyage, which he will be directed to return to the 

 Museum when done with." 



It is reported to the Trustees that when the pheno- 

 gamous plants collected in the Auckland and Camp- 

 bell's Islands had been described they were returned 

 to the Museum on the 11th of December, 1845, accord- 

 ing to the terms of Sir John Barrow's letter, and that 

 two other parcels were subsequently restored to the 

 Trustees. 



The Trustees have no information as to the number of 

 plants collected during the expedition, but they are in- 

 formed that only 1,404 species out of the 5,340 de- 

 scribed in the botany of the voyage have been received 

 back at the Museum. 



The Trustees assume that the purpose for which tn© 

 plants were placed in your hands was fully accom- 

 plished when the last portion of the botany of the 

 voyage was published in 1860. Under these circum- 

 stances, the Trustees have directed me to bring this sub- 

 ject under your notice, and to express the hope that 

 such of the plants collected in the voyage of the 

 " Erebus " and " Terror" as have not yet been returned 

 to the herbarium of the British Museum may be re- 

 turned to the Trustees with as little delay as may b» 

 convenient. 



I have, etc., 

 (Signed) J. Wintee. Jones. 



J. Dalton Hooker, Esq., M.D., C.B., P.R.S. 



MEMOBANDTm on the collection of plants, of which the 

 estaiblishmemt of Kew is considered by the Trustees 

 of the British Museum to have deprived the British 

 Museum : — 



1. The Antarctic collections made during the voyagd 

 of the "Erebus" and "Terror." It was but a small 

 portion of these, formed (if my memory serves me) 

 during the first year of the voyage, that was deposited 

 at the British Museum. On the return of the ships 

 they were claimed by the Commander, who was aharged 

 under the Admiralty with their publication and dis- 

 posal, and were made over under his orders to me, to 

 be incorporated with the main collection, which never 

 went to the Museum ; and I was requested by him to 

 give to the Museum, after their publication, as com- 

 plete a set as I could of all the plants collected by the 

 " Erebus " and " Terror " in the Antarctic regions. 



This I did, giving manifold more than had been 

 originally sent to the Museum, including the best 

 specimens of these, and adding others from private 

 sources ; for all which I received the thanks of the 

 Trustees and of the Keepers of the Botanical Depart- 

 ment, who, though nearly 30 years have since elapsed, 

 made no complaint to me, nor alluded to a claim for 

 further contributions. 



2. The New Zealand and Tasmanian plants of the 

 same voyage were collected when I was on leave, not 

 on duty, and at my own cost for travelling, horses, 

 servants, transport and living. The bulk of them wa?. 

 sent to England by the Commander of the expedition 

 (neither to Kew nor to the British Museum) to await 

 its return, and another large portion was taken home 

 by the ships. On the return of the latter, all Avere 

 placed by me at the disposal of the Commander, who 

 regarded them as my private property, and took no 

 cognizance of the publication of the floras of New 

 Zealand and Tasmania. Nevertheless, I did give a 

 share of the New Zealand plants to the British Museum, 

 and would have done so with the Tasmanian had it not 

 been that a magnificent collection of the very same 

 plants, far superior to my own, and made by my fellow- 

 collector in Tasmania, Mr. Gunn, was given by him to 

 the Keeper of the Botanical Department of the British 

 Museum. 



I should state that the expedition carried no official 

 naturalist; it was intended that it should have done 

 so, and I was offered the appointment by its Com- 

 mander. The Admiralty, however, refused to appoint 

 one, and I was offered the Assistant Surgeonship of the 

 "Erebus" or nothing. I accordingly had to study for 

 this ; and, having passed the necessary medical and 

 surgical examinations, I received that appointment 

 without any instructions from the Admiralty regarding 

 Natural BQstory collecting, and I did the duty of 



