John Gilbert Baker. 



XXV 



accept the post of librarian at the Eoyal Gardens, Kew. The ability with 

 which, from 1859 to 1865, Baker distributed the collections of the Exchange 

 Club and drew up its reports enhanced the respect with which he was 

 already regarded, and his reputation as a philosophical natural historian was 

 placed on a permanent basis by the publication, in 1863, of a scholarly series 

 of studies of the botany, geology, climate, and physical geography of North 

 Yorkshire. The work which his connection with tlie Exchange Club entailed 

 led Baker now to turn his attention to taxonomic problems. He published in 

 the ' Naturalist ' for 1864 a review of the British roses, which attracted 

 immediate attention on the Continent as well as in this country. In 1865 he 

 contributed to the ' Journal of Botany ' a monograph of the British mints. 



In May, 1864, Baker met with a misfortune which was to determine his 

 future career. His work on North Yorkshire, though published in London, 

 had been printed at Thirsk, where the bulk of the stock was stored in his 

 business premises. A disastrous fire destroyed this stock and at the same 

 time consumed his private herbarium and his botanical library. The members 

 of the Exchange Club and other friends at once proceeded spontaneously to 

 replace his lost library and did all that they could to make good the valuable 

 botanical collection. They could not restore the stock of copies of the volume 

 on North Yorkshire. But practical sympathy induced some at least of his 

 friends to suggest to Baker that his misfortune would be a gain to the cause 

 of natural knowledge were he to take the opportunity it offered him of 

 abandoning business pursuits and of devoting himself exclusively to those 

 scientific studies he was so well qualified to prosecute. 



There is no reason to doubt that this wise suggestion attracted Baker, 

 though when it was made its realisation must have appeared somewhat 

 hopeless. Baker had given " hostages to fortune." In August, 1860, he had 

 married , Hannah Unthank, and their first-born child, Edmund, born on 

 February 9, 1864, was an infant when the fire took place. A chapter of 

 accidents, however, enabled the suggestion to be ad.opted. 



In 1862 the widow of the accomplished W. Boirer had presented to Kew 

 the whole of her husband's fine herbarium. The incorporation in the general 

 collection of Borrer's vascular cryptogams was a matter of urgency in 

 connection with work on which the Director of Kew was personally engaged. 

 The excellence of Baker's treatment of the roses had arrested Sir William 

 Hooker's attention. It was known, too, that in connection with his Exchange 

 Club work Baker was then making a special study of ferns. He was accord- 

 ingly invited to assist in the arrangement of the Borrer material preparatory 

 to the laying-in of the sheets. In August, 1865, the veteran Sir William 

 Hooker died in his eighty-first year. Among the many tasks undertaken by 

 that eminent botanist, one of the most arduous had been the preparation of 

 his ' Species Eilicura,' the five volumes of which had occupied much of his 

 attention between 1846 and 1864. On the completion of this great work, its 

 author, unwearied by the weight of fourscore years, set himself the task of 

 preparing a ' Synopsis Filicum,' and it was in connection with this new 



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