Ixvi Sir William Jackson Hooker . 
sixty-ninth year, and burthened with the duty of creating 
a National Arboretum in the Pleasure Grounds, nearly two 
miles distant from West Park, and demanding unremitting 
scientific supervision. Nor must it be forgotten that his 
herbarium was outgrowing his accommodation for it, and 
that his expenses all along far exceeded his official salary 1 . 
The house was a good one, facing the Green, with its back in 
the Gardens, but it would not accommodate his library and 
herbarium, which, together with his study and artist’s room, 
occupied thirteen apartments in West Park. 
Fortunately a large house 2 closely adjacent to the Botanic 
Gardens, which had formerly been occupied by the King of 
Hanover, afforded abundant space for the herbarium and 
library, of which last he kept in his study such works as 
were in frequent use. A history of the Herbarium and 
Library at Kew during my father’s lifetime will be found 
further on. 
Returning to the operations in the Botanic Gardens, in 
about 1855 instructions were given to the Director (to his 
great discomfiture) to decorate the lawns and borders of the 
paths over a considerable area of the Botanic Gardens with 
‘ carpet-beds ’ of flowers. These he regarded as out of place 
in a garden where objects of as great beauty, and far greater 
interest both popular and scientific, abounded. He further 
regretted the great expenditure on propagating-pits, frames, 
soil, and labour, on a show of but a few weeks’ annual dura- 
tion, whilst some scientific branches of the establishment 
1 On taking up his residence at Kew he was allowed to retain with his salary 
(by this time £ 500 ) the allowance for rent (^200) which he had at West Park ; in 
1855, after several appeals for aid in conducting his enormously increased duties, 
I was appointed Assistant Director of the Royal Gardens, Kew. 
2 This house, with the grounds around it, had belonged to a Mr. Hunter, 
from whom it was purchased in 1818 by King George III, at the instigation of 
Sir Joseph Banks, to provide for a Herbarium and Library to be attached to the 
Royal Botanic Gardens. The only objective evidence of its original destination 
was that one of the rooms was shelved for books. In 1823 George IV sold the 
house and grounds to the nation : in 1830 William IV granted it to the Duchess of 
Cumberland for her life. On the accession of the Duke of Cumberland to the 
throne of Hanover, it became known as * The King of Hanover’s house.’ It is 
now entitled ‘ The Herbarium of the Royal Gardens.’ 
