Iv 
West Park and Kew, 1841-1865. 
and other documents as not being the property of the Com- 
missioners. On April 1, 1841, my father received his com- 
mission, the acceptance of which was regarded by his friends 
as a very insecure foundation on which to build the object of 
his ambition, a Botanic Garden worthy of the nation. But he 
was confident of the support of the scientific public in what- 
ever he should undertake, and, I suspect, of that of more than 
one of the Commissioners of Woods and Forests. 
The next step was to find a residence within a reasonable 
distance from the Gardens. There was none to be had 
within two-thirds of a mile, where, in the adjoining parish of 
Mortlake, there stood a commodious three-storied many- 
roomed building, of which he took a lease. It was pleasantly 
situated on 7 \ acres of ground with some fine trees that 
stretched down to the Thames, had a walled garden, orchard, 
stables, and coach-house, and was in good repair. It bore 
the name of Brick-stables, for which its owner, the possessor of 
large property in the vicinage, substituted that of West Park 1 . 
The translation from Glasgow to West Park occupied my 
father for three months, during which he was heavily and 
painfully handicapped by the absence of my mother, who 
was nursing a dying daughter in J ersey, and the illness of his 
father, who was nearer ninety than eighty years of age, and 
had lived with him for ten years. His only surviving son was 
serving in the Antarctic Expedition under Captain (afterwards 
Admiral Sir James Clarke) Ross. There being no railroad 
available in those days, he hired a smack for the conveyance 
by sea of his furniture, household goods and gods, herbarium 
and library, from Glasgow to London, where they were put 
into lighters and landed on the banks of the Thames at West 
Park itself. Previous to this he had lightened his library by 
the sale of 1,000 volumes, chiefly of classics, Delphine, Aldine, 
and Elzevir editions, collected in the middle of the previous 
Gardens to Australia, the Cape, &c., but these had already been sent to the 
British Museum. 
1 West Park has disappeared. Its former site is occupied by the sewage works 
of Kew and Richmond. 
