The History of a Forty Years Friendship. 197 
the more important events in the lives of the two men. Darwin 
was born on February 12th, 1809, at Shrewsbury; Hooker on June 
30th, 1817, at Halesworth in Suffolk. Darwin died on April 19th, 
1882, at Down in Kent in his seventy-fourth year, and Hooker died 
on December 10th, 1911, at the Camp, near Sunningdale, Berkshire. 
Darwin, on leaving Shrewsbury School, spent a short time as 
a medical student in the University of Edinburgh; in 1828 he 
entered Christ’s College, Cambridge, proceeding to the B.A. degree 
in 1831. Hooker was educated at the High School and University 
of Glasgow, and took the M.D. degree in 1839. On December 27th, 
1831, Darwin sailed in the “ Beagle,” returning in October, 1836. 
In 1839 Hooker sailed from the Medway as Assistant Naval Surgeon 
in the “Erebus” under Sir James Ross in his Antarctic voyage, 
returning in 1843. After Darwin’s return home he lived for a short 
time at Cambridge; then in Gower Street, London, and in 1842 
removed to Down—his home for the rest of his life. 
The lives of the two men after 1842 afford a striking contrast. 
Darwin, whose health was very far from robust, devoted himself to 
research, living in seclusion at Down where he produced an amount 
and quality of work almost incredible when it is remembered to 
what an extent his hours of strenuous labour were relentlessly 
curtailed by physical disability, which to many men would have 
meant the complete abandonment of continuous and exacting 
intellectual pursuits. Hooker, on the other hand, was a man of 
exceptional vigour; until his retirement from the Directorship of 
Kew he was largely occupied with routine duties connected with 
Government posts. Even in his busiest official years Hooker 
continued to enrich botanical science by his own investigations. 
His first contribution to Botany was published 1837; his last in 
1911. Darwin’s first paper appeared in 1828 and, as in Hooker’s 
case, the last was published in the year of his death, 1882. 
In 1864 Darwin was awarded the Copley Medal, the highest 
scientific distinction which the Royal Society can confer : to Hooker 
the same honour was paid in 1887. On his ninetieth birthday 
Hooker received the Order of Merit. 
The following brief survey serves to illustrate the activity of Sir 
Joseph Hooker’s life up to the time of his retirement. In 1843 he 
was appointed assistant to the Professor of Botany in the University 
of Edinburgh, and in 1845 Botanist to the Geological Survey. In 
1847 he sailed for India and was away three years : the account of 
this expedition, published under the title “ Himalayan Journals,” 
