684 
president’s address. 
Hooker,” born on July 6th, 1785, in St. Saviour’s parish, 
Norwich. 29 
His father was Joseph Hooker, a native of Exeter, where he 
had been a confidential clerk in the house of Baring Brothers, 
wool-staplers. 31 From him William inherited his love for 
gardening, and it is to his early life in the neighbourhood of 
Norwich — the City of Gardens — that we trace his positions as 
Developer of Glasgow Botanic Garden (1820-41) and Director 
of Kew Gardens (1841-65). According to Grigor, near the 
northern end of Costessey village, opposite the garden of Mr. 
John Culley, was “ the spot where Hooker made his first 
essay in the arrangement of plants under the Linnean system. 
Though it has long run wild (in 1841), some individuals may 
yet be traced which formed a part of this interesting col- 
lection.” 9 I cannot find any other reference to W. J. Hooker’s 
garden at Costessey, and apparently his son knew nothing of 
it. 31 It is possible that there is some confusion with the 
private botanic garden of Simon Wilkin, who married Mr. 
John Culley’s daughter Emma, and was brother-in-law to Mr. 
Thomas Brightwell ? 
Though W. J. Hooker was a keen student of entomology, 
and became an intimate friend of Kirby and Spence, Dr. James 
Smith advised that young Hooker should devote himself to 
botany. At the age of twenty he was well versed in the 
flowering plants, mosses, hepaticse, lichens, and fresh-water 
algae, of his native county. He discovered in December, 
1805, in a wood at Sprowston, Buxbaumia aphylla, a moss 
new to Britain ; of this he took specimens to his friend, Dr. 
James Smith, who recommended him to send some to Mr. 
Dawson Turner. Hooker immediately received an invitation 
from Mr. Turner to visit him at Yarmouth, and the tiny moss 
was thus the means of his first introduction to his future wife. 
In 1806 Hooker made a botanical tour in Scotland with 
* Since this was written, Mr. W. A. Nicholson received a letter from Miss 
M. J. Wilkin stating that " My father, Mr. Simon Wilkin, while he resided in the 
Mill-house at Cossey, had a portion of the gardens laid out as an experimental 
botanical garden. His friend Mr. Wm. J. Hooker— afterwards Sir . J. Hooker, 
of Kew Gardens— visited him frequently at Cossey. and together they planned the 
garden and superintended it, with the deepest interest.” 
