150 



Appendix I. 



the distribution of plants over the globe._ These_ museums 

 constitute concrete courses of instruction iinrivalled m 

 concentration and completeness, and the public interest 

 in them is proved by the numljer of persons who avail 

 themselves of the stores of information thus provided. 



The contributions of Sir William Hooker to these 

 museum-s were his free gift to the country, for which he 

 never received a farthing of remuneration. 



Li 1852 the Director's salary, which had previously 

 been raised to £600 a year, was augmented to £800, 

 together with a house which had become vacant at the 

 time. The herbarium was then lodged in a separate 

 building, and immediately afterwards donations and 

 le'Jacies°(some to the Director, some to the Government 

 of°the day) poured into it. The labour of naming the 

 collections" of expeditions, and of drawing up botanical 

 reports, became at length so excessive that the public 

 need of the herbarium was still further recognised by 

 the Government. The Director had previously borne 

 the expense both of assistance and maintenance : of 

 these he was now relieved, though he still continued to 

 bear the cost of books for his library, and of new speci- 

 mens of plants. 



Without this personal devotion on the part of the 

 Director the development ofKew would have been a 

 simple impossibility. For five-and-twenty years his pur- 

 chases were made and his collections elaborated at his 

 own expense and risk, though they ;vere constantly em- 

 ployed in the work of the country. Before his death, 

 knowing that his son could not afford to be as regardless 

 of pecuniary considerations as he had been himself, he 

 crave directions to have his herbarium valued by com- 

 petent persons, and offered it to the Government at the 

 lowest valuation. On these terms the collections which 

 had previously been devoted to the nation's use became 

 the property of the nation itself. 



This is a brief but sufficient statement of the relation- 

 ship of Sir William Hooker to Kew Gardens. It shows 

 him to have been their virtual creator. 



The antecedents and achievements of the present 

 Direotor of Kew may be thus sketched. In 1839 Dr. 

 Joseph Hooker was appointed assistant surgeon and 

 naturalist to the Antarctic Expedition, the most peri- 

 lous, perhaps, that ever sailed from these shores, and 

 the scientific results of which exceeded in importance 

 those of anv other nava;l exploring expedition m this 

 century. During this voyage Dr. Hooker received from 

 the Government" the pay of his rank as a medical officer. 

 His outfit, his books, his instruments, were provided by 

 his father. The expenses of travelling and collecting 

 ushore during his four years' voyage of circumnavigation 

 were defraved from the same source, though this work 

 Tvas done with the express object of enriching a public 

 establishment. 



On his return he waived his claim to promotion in the 

 Navy, and devoted four additional years to the classifi- 

 cation and publication of the results of the voyage. He 

 also aided his father, as an unpaid volunteer, m the de- 

 velopment of the scientific branches of the Kew estab- 

 lishment. 



In 1847 Dr. Hooker was sent to India to explore, in 

 the interests of Kew, an unknown region of the Hima- 

 laya ; and he was directed to proceed subsequently to 

 Borneo, to report on the vegetable resources. His outfit 

 both for India and Borneo, which embraced a large col- 

 lection of expensive instruments, cost the Government 

 nothing. To cover all expenses incidental to his three 

 years' ^travelling and collecting, including the cost of 

 assistants and specimens, a sum of £1.200 was received, 

 while the real disbursements of Dr. Hooker during this 

 time amounted to £2.200. The difference was contri- 

 buted by Sir William Hooker and his son in the interest 

 of the establishment to which they had consecrated their 

 "best energies. 



On his return from India, Dr. Hooker again devoted 

 himself to the work of aiding his father in the scientific 

 development of Kew. He was also employed by the 

 Admiralty during the nine years from 1851 to 1860, in 

 publishincr the botanical discoveries of various naval and 

 other vovages, from Captain Cook's downwards to parts 

 of the world visited by Dr. Hooker himself. For this 

 service he received three years' pay as a medical offiter 

 in the Navy together with a sum of £500, which was 

 accompanied 'by the expression of their Lordships' ap- 

 s -nrobatlon of the zeal, perseverance, and scientific ability 

 disp^aved m bringing 1/> a successful completion this 

 (Treat botanical work. For three yeari liu was odsapied 



with the arrangement and distribution of his Indian col- 

 lections and the publication of his journals. To cover 

 the expense incidental to these labours, an allowance of 

 £400 a year was granted by the Government. 



Besides the voyages and travels above adverted to, 

 Dr. Hooker has made journeys to various parts of 

 Europe, to Western Asia, and to North Africa. The 

 expenses of these journeys, though they were made 

 with the express object of adding to the interest and 

 completeness of Kew, have been borne by himself, and 

 the results given to the establishment of which he is a 

 director. 



We place this data before you, not with a view of 

 founding on them either censure or complaint. The 

 labours of Dr. Hooker and the heavy dram upon his 

 father's purse which his unexampled education as a 

 botanist involved, constituted the discipline which made 

 him the man he now is. But we think it highly desir- 

 able that you and England should know as much of his 

 career as will enable you to decide whether its arbitrary 

 interruption by your First Commissioner be creditable 

 to the Government of this country. 



In 1855, Sir William Hooker being then seventy years 

 of age. Dr. Hooker was appointed his Assistant-Director, 

 at a salary of £400 a year, without a house ; and from 

 this time his share in the duties of the garden were 

 added to his more purely scientific ones. In 1858 his 

 salary was increased to £500 a year, with a house ; and 

 in 1865, 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 

 illustrated. We will, therefore, ask permission to 

 l^lace before you only one additional specimen of his 

 conduct. As regards the floras of Asia, Africa, and 

 America, the herbarium at Kew had been long un- 

 rivalled. Europe, however, was but scantily repre- 

 sented. Three years ago a collection [formed by 

 Jacques Gay, and copiously annotated] embracing the 

 very flora needed for the completion of Kew, was 

 offered for sale in Paris. At his own private cost. Dr. 

 Hooker purchased this collection for £400, and pre- 

 sented it to the Kew Herbarium. 



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 Parliament 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 the 

 memorial is a remonstrance. 



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 particu- 

 lar does England stand more conspicuously superior to 

 all other countries than in the possession of Kew. The 

 establishment is not only without a rival, but there is 

 no approach to rivalry as regards the extent, impor- 

 tance, or scientific results of its operations. Upwards 

 of 130 volumes on all branches of botany, including a 

 most important series of Colonial floras, but exclud- 

 ing many weighty contributions to scientific societies 

 and journals, have 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 selec- 

 tion from which, now bound together at Kew, embraces 

 some 40,000 letters addressed to the directors, and for 

 the most part answered with their own hands. 



By the joint efforts of the Directors, a series of com- 

 plete floras of India and the Colonies was set on foot at 

 Kew, of which those of the West Indies, all the Aus- 

 tralian Colonies, New Zealand, Tropical Africa, the 

 Cape Colonies, and British India, are completed or m 

 progress. These are standard works of inestimable 

 value in the countries whose plants they describe, as 

 well as to scientific travellers and institutions in Eu:op3. 



We have hitherto ■.■onfined ourselves to a statement 

 of Dr. Hooker's services in relation to Ke.v, and have 

 said nothing of his labours in geology, meteorology, and 

 other sciences, nor of his researches while botanist of 



