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The National Herbarium of New South Wales — 
One Hundred Years 
The first home of the National Herbarium of New South Wales, now known as the 
R.H. Anderson Building. The portico on the right leads to the original Museum and 
Lecture Hall, a single room constructed in 1878 and incorporated into the two- 
storey building that was opened in 1901. The entrance on the left bears the title 
'National Herbarium' and '1899', the date of construction of that part of the 
building, and leads to the J.H. Maiden Lecture Theatre. 
This issue of Telopea commemorates the centenary on 8 March 2001 of the first home of 
the National Herbarium of New South Wales, and also Joseph Henry Maiden (Director 
of the Botanic Gardens 1896-1924) who founded the Herbarium and first established 
its scientific reputation. 
Sydney's Royal Botanic Gardens has a proud status as Australia's oldest continuing 
scientific institution, persisting at its Farm Cove site and with a scientist (or 'botanical 
soldier' in the case of its first Superintendent, Charles Fraser) at its helm from its 
earliest days. In 1916 the centenary of its foundation was celebrated, taking the 
completion of the encircling road in 1816 as marking its identity and foundation 
(Gilbert 1986). Initially the site was envisaged as an entrepot, from where samples of 
the 'vegetable resources' of the new colony would be shipped to Britain, the Mother 
Country, and where plants needed by the colonists could be established and 
distributed. In keeping with such close links to Britain, the young settlement was not 
seen as a place for permanent scientific collections — these were sent to Europe for safe 
keeping and expert study. So the Herbarium's foundation, forty years later than its 
counterpart in Melbourne, is dated from when Joseph Henry Maiden took up duty as 
Director in 1896. 
Maiden had come from England as a young man but had no doubt that Australia was 
a place for enduring scientific organisations and specimen collections. His early years 
in Sydney had been as the first Curator of the Technological Museum, forerunner of 
today's Powerhouse Museum. As at the Museum, his priority on appointment to the 
