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be found in this Colony'; in a desptach of 3 April he put Bidwill's name ('Bidwell') 
forward to Gladstone's successor as Colonial Secretary, Earl Grey, and the new Governor 
and the Legislative Council appointed Bidwill Government Botanist and Director (the 
first time the title had been used). BidwUl wrote to Hooker^* in November 1847 'I have 
been acting as Director of the Sydney Gardens' since 1 September. He had been 
appointed some time previously but had waited for the passing of the appropriate act 
by Council because it had not been clear that Council would vote the available salary 
of £300, a sum apparently higher than would have been voted for any other person in 
the Colony. Indeed it seems that Bidwill had had a role in influencing certain members 
of Council not to oppose the NSW Colonial Secretary, Edward Deas Thomson, who 
had privately agreed with Bidwill that the salary should be so exceptionally high. 
Bidwill's influence probably through Macarthur and McLeay seemed to have been 
strong because the vote was carried without opposition. 
Once in office, Bidwill was writing to King of the labile sexuality of Pittosporum flowers 
in the Gardens (Maiden 1903, 1908), asking for Dendrobium kingianum pollinia, and 
noting that Garrya elliptica had been introduced. That King too was getting involved in 
hybridizing gladioli gave Bidwill continued reason to enthuse^. He was sending out 
sugar-cane cuttings to Macarthur^* and was receiving, perhaps from J.G. Boyd, living 
orchids and other plants from Vanuatu”, which he intended to send to Kew as he had 
no facilities for their cultivation in Sydney; these included a 'Pathos' with leaves like 
a Strelitzia (probably Epipremnuin amplissimum, Araceae*®, as it has Musaceous venation 
whereas P. rumphii, the only species of Pathos in the islands, does not), climbers, a 
'fleshy-leaved thing' looking like a 'Cacalia' and other succulents; there were also a 
new Araucaria from New Caledonia and another, possibly new, from Australia. These, 
with material raised from seeds collected by Leichhardt and Mitchell as well as a plant 
of Iris Tahitian form of Hibisais rosa-sinensis raised at Camden, a plant of Nuytsia florihuuda 
grafted on to a root and Criniim raised from seed collected by Boyd in Vanuatu were 
all sent off to Hooker in a Camden box borrowed from Macarthur*’ in December. 
As early as 1843 Bidwill had complained to Bowman “ that the Gardens had been in 
decline for five years and now wrote**, 'I shall have a great deal of difficulty for 
some time to do things in a proper way but 1 have written to England to Dr Lindley 
to send out a good gardener who 1 hope to be able to put in Kidd's place [Kidd was 
redesignated 'overseer' on Bidwill's appointment (Maiden 1906, Froggatt 1932)] as 
soon as he chooses to take himself off'. Macarthur reported that under Bidwill the 
Gardens were 'to be completely remodelled and reformed'*'’. 
But Bidwill was to be Director for only a few weeks. The Colonial Office in London 
had also set about finding a Director and Grey appointed Lindley's candidate**, 
Charles Moore (1820-1907), who arrived in the following January. To Hooker's 
annoyance, the Colonial Office had not turned to him at all, but to Lindley (then 
Professor of Botany at University College London) and j.S. Henslow, Professor of 
Botany at Cambridge; Macarthur was not even corresponding with Lindley and the 
canvassing of Hooker by him and McLeay seems to have been ill-targeted. Although 
Grey had sent his dispatch to Gipps on 10 July 1847**, the news seems not to have 
been released by the Governor's office and the perceiv'ed effect was like that a few 
years before in the case of Charles Sturt (who was offered the post of Surveyor- 
General in South Australia in 1838 but an appointee from London was given the job 
and Sturt was offered that of Assistant Commissioner of Crown Lands instead 
[Gibbney 1966]), so that the local appointment seemed to have been overturned in 
favour of that made by London. In this case the confusion of the apparently crossing 
despatches led Grey in his despatch of 15 September to refer tersely to his earlier 
instruction®^ but it is not clear whether the Colonial Office had intelligence of the 
machinations of Macarthur and the Committee before discounting an approach to 
