Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker | |
|---|---|
 Hooker in 1897 | |
| Born | (1817-06-30)30 June 1817 Halesworth, Suffolk, United Kingdom |
| Died | 10 December 1911(1911-12-10) (aged 94) Sunningdale, Berkshire, United Kingdom |
| Alma mater | University of Glasgow |
| Spouse | |
| Awards |
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| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Botany |
| Institutions | Kew Gardens |
| Author abbrev. (botany) | Hook.f. |
| Signature | |
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Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker (30 June 1817 – 10 December 1911) was a Britishbotanist and explorer in the 19th century.[1] He was a founder of geographical botany andCharles Darwin's closest friend.[2] For 20 years he served as director of theRoyal Botanical Gardens, Kew, succeeding his father,William Jackson Hooker, and was awarded the highest honours of British science.[3][4]
Hooker was born inHalesworth, Suffolk, England. He was the second son of Maria Sarah Turner, eldest daughter of the bankerDawson Turner and sister-in-law ofFrancis Palgrave, and the famous botanist SirWilliam Jackson Hooker,Regius Professor of Botany. From the age of seven, Hooker attended his father's lectures at theUniversity of Glasgow, taking an early interest inplant distribution and the voyages of explorers like CaptainJames Cook.[5] He was educated at theGlasgow High School and went on to study medicine at the University of Glasgow graduating with anMD in 1839.
His degree qualified him for employment in the Naval Medical Service. He joined the polar explorerCaptain James Clark Ross'sAntarctic expedition to theSouth Magnetic Pole after receiving a commission as Assistant-Surgeon onHMS Erebus. On this expedition, Hooker was granted full access to the private library ofRichard Clement Moody,[6] thenGovernor of the Falkland Islands. Hooker described the library as 'excellent',[6] and developed a close friendship with Moody.[7]
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In 1851, he marriedFrances Harriet Henslow (1825–1874), daughter of Darwin's mentor,John Stevens Henslow. They had three daughters and four sons:
Frances Harriet Henslow's contribution to his work included translating French botanical texts which Hooker edited.[11]
After his first wife's death in 1874, in 1876 he married Lady Hyacinth Jardine (1842–1921), daughter ofWilliam Samuel Symonds and the widow of SirWilliam Jardine. They had two sons:
Lady Hooker was elected a Fellow of theRSPB in 1905.
Hooker regularly corresponded with the chief government scientist in New Zealand, SirJames Hector. He sent his son Willy (aged 15) to stay in New Zealand with the recently married Hector in 1869, Willy was sickly and coughing up blood, and a warmer climate was recommended. Though well-behaved he was indolent. Hector sent him on a cruise on a Government steamer theSturt with a son (also 15) of ColonelHaultain the Defence minister. Mrs Hector treated him like a younger brother. After eight months and in better health Hector sent him home to England, saying he had greatly improved. His father was grateful, and surprised when Willy passed the civil service examination. He got an administrative job in the India Office, and lived to age 89.
However, his third son, Brian, was a "great worry" to him. He qualified as a geologist and mining engineer at the Royal School of Mines but unable to get a job in Britain emigrated to Australia, where he married. He resigned a Queensland lectureship to invest (with his brother Willy) in an impressively named but cash-strapped gold-mining company which collapsed, the Queensland Minerals Exploration Company. Joseph was appalled; Brian could not support his wife and children or find employment.
In 1891, Hector sent a pessimistic report on a proposed tin mine onStewart Island, and saw Brian in 1892 and 1893, after he left his family in Australia. Hector ceased to be involved with mining in New Zealand under the new Liberal government. Brian returned to his family in Australia in 1894.[12]
On 10 December 1911, after a short and apparently minor illness, Hooker died in his sleep at home, the Camp,Sunningdale, Berkshire. The Dean and Chapter ofWestminster Abbey offered a grave near Darwin's in thenave but insisted that Hooker becremated before.[13]
His widow, Hyacinth, declined the proposal and eventually Hooker's body was buried, as he wished to be, alongside his father in the churchyard ofSt Anne's Church, Kew, a short distance fromKew Gardens. His memorial tablet in the church, with a motif of five plants, was designed by Matilda Smith.[14]
Hooker's first expedition, led byJames Clark Ross, consisted of two ships,HMS Erebus andHMS Terror; it was the last major voyage of exploration made entirely under sail.[15] Hooker was the youngest of the 128-man crew. He sailed on theErebus and was assistant toRobert McCormick, who in addition to being the ship's Surgeon was instructed to collect zoological and geological specimens.[16] The ships sailed on 30 September 1839. Before journeying to Antarctica they visitedMadeira,Tenerife,Santiago andQuail Island in theCape Verde archipelago,St Paul Rocks,Trindade east of Brazil,St Helena, and theCape of Good Hope. Hooker made plant collections at each location and while travelling drew these and specimens ofalgae and sea life pulled aboard using tow nets.
From the Cape they entered the Southern Ocean. Their first stop was theCrozet Islands where they set down onPossession Island to deliver coffee to sealers. They departed for theKerguelen Islands where they would spend several days. Hooker identified 18 flowering plants, 35mosses andliverworts, 25lichens and 51 algae, including some that were not described by surgeon William Anderson when James Cook had visited the islands in 1772.[17] The expedition spent some time inHobart,Van Diemen's Land, and then moved on to theAuckland Islands andCampbell Island, and onward to Antarctica to locate the South Magnetic Pole. After spending 5 months in the Antarctic they returned to resupply in Hobart, then went on to Sydney, and theBay of Islands in New Zealand from 18 August to 23 November 1841.[18] They left New Zealand to return to Antarctica. After spending 138 days at sea, and a collision between theErebus andTerror, they sailed to theFalkland Islands, toTierra del Fuego, back to the Falklands and onward to their third sortie into the Antarctic. When Hooker arrived on the Falkland Islands with the expedition of Ross, he developed a close friendship withRichard Clement Moody, the Governor of the Falkland Islands.[7] Moody granted Hooker full use of his personal library, which Hooker described as 'excellent',[6] and Hooker described Moody as 'a very active and intelligent young man, most anxious to improve the colony and gain every information [sic] respecting its products'.[19]
Subsequently, the Ross expedition made a landing atCockburn Island off theAntarctic Peninsula, and after leaving the Antarctic, stopped at the Cape, St Helena andAscension Island. The ships arrived back in England on 4 September 1843; the voyage had been a success for Ross as it was the first to confirm the existence of the southern continent and chart much of its coastline.[20]
In 1845, Hooker applied for the Chair of Botany at theUniversity of Edinburgh. This position included duties at theRoyal Botanic Gardens of Scotland, and so the appointment was influenced by local politicians. An unusually protracted struggle ensued, resulting in the election of the locally born and bred botanist,John Hutton Balfour. TheDarwin correspondence, now public, makes clear Darwin's sense of shock at this unexpected outcome.[21] Hooker declined a chair at Glasgow University which became vacant on Balfour's appointment. Instead, he took a position as botanist to theGeological Survey of Great Britain in 1846. He began work onpalaeobotany, searching for fossil plants in the coal-beds ofWales, eventually discovering the firstcoal ball in 1855. He became engaged to Frances Henslow, daughter ofCharles Darwin's botany tutorJohn Stevens Henslow, but he was keen to continue to travel and gain more experience in the field. He wanted to travel to India and theHimalayas. In 1847 his father nominated him to travel to India and collect plants forKew. In 2011, a collection of glass plate slides of paleontological fossils, some prepared by Darwin,William Nicol and others, which had been lost following Hooker's brief tenure with the Survey, were rediscovered in the Survey vaults inKeyworth in Nottinghamshire, and they shed light on the international breadth of English scientific research in the first half of the nineteenth century.[22]
On 11 November 1847 Hooker left England for his three-year-longHimalayan expedition.[23] This was just 10 days after being granted two and a half years' leave from the Geological Survey to study fossil plants in India andBorneo on behalf of Kew and the Admiralty.[24] He would be the first European to collect plants in the Himalaya, but abandoned the projected visit toLabuan. He received free passage onHMS Sidon, to theNile and then travelled overland toSuez where he boarded a ship to India. He arrived inCalcutta on 12 January 1848, leaving on 28th to begin his travels with a geological survey party under'Mr Williams', who he left on 3 March to continue travelling by elephant toMirzapur, up the Ganges by boat toSiliguri and overland by pony toDarjeeling, arriving on 16 April 1848.
Hooker's expedition was based inDarjeeling where he stayed with naturalistBrian Houghton Hodgson. Through Hodgson he met British East India Company representativeArchibald Campbell who negotiated Hooker's admission toSikkim, which was finally approved in 1849 (He was later briefly taken prisoner by the Raja of Sikkim). Meanwhile, Hooker wrote to Darwin relaying to him the habits of animals in India, and collected plants inBengal. He explored with local resident Charles Barnes, then travelled along theGreat Runjeet river to its junction with theTeesta River andTonglu mountain in theSingalila range on the border withNepal.
Hooker and a sizeable party of local assistants departed for eastern Nepal on 27 October 1848. They travelled to Zongri, west over the spurs ofKangchenjunga, and north west along Nepal's passes intoTibet. In April 1849 he planned a longer expedition into Sikkim. Leaving on 3 May, he travelled north west up theLachen Valley to the Kongra Lama Pass and then to theLachoong Pass. Campbell and Hooker were imprisoned by the Dewan of Sikkim as they travelled towards theCho La in Tibet.[25][26] A British team was sent to negotiate with the king of Sikkim. However, they were released without any bloodshed and Hooker returned to Darjeeling, where he spent January and February 1850 writing his journals, replacing specimens lost during his detention and planning a journey for his last year in India. According to an 1887 journal written by Indian administratorRichard Temple, many of therhododendrons found in English gardens of the time were grown from seeds collected by Hooker in Sikkim.[27]
Reluctant to return to Sikkim, and unenthusiastic about travelling inBhutan, he chose to make his last Himalayan expedition toSylhet and theKhasi Hills in Assam. He was accompanied byThomas Thomson, a fellow student from Glasgow University. They left Darjeeling on 1 May 1850, then sailed to theBay of Bengal and travelled overland by elephant to the Khasi Hills and established a headquarters for their studies in Churra, where they stayed until 9 December, when they began their trip back to England. With Thomson he distributed theexsiccata-like seriesHerbarium Indiae orientalis.[28]
Hooker's survey of hitherto unexplored regions, theHimalayan Journals, dedicated toCharles Darwin, was published by theCalcuttaTrigonometrical Survey Office in 1854, abbreviated again in 1855 and later by the Minerva Library of Famous Books published by Ward, Lock, Bowden & Co. in 1891.
When Hooker returned to England his father, who had been appointed director of theRoyal Botanic Gardens, Kew in 1841, was now a prominent man of science. William Hooker, through his connections, secured an Admiralty grant of £1000 to defray the cost of plates for his son'sBotany of the Antarctic Voyages, and an annual stipend of £200 for Joseph while he worked on the flora. Hooker's flora was also to include that collected on the voyages of Cook and Menzies held by the British Museum and collections made on theBeagle. The floras were illustrated byWalter Hood Fitch (trained in botanical illustration by William Hooker), who would go on to become the most prolific Victorianbotanical artist.
Hooker's collections from the Antarctic voyage were described eventually in one of two volumes published as theFlora Antarctica (1844–47). In theFlora he wrote about islands and their role inplant geography: the work made Hooker's reputation as a systemist and plant geographer.[29] His works on the voyage were completed withFlora Novae-Zelandiae (1851–53) andFlora Tasmaniae (1853–59).
This trip was taken in the autumn of 1860, withDaniel Hanbury. They visited and collected inSyria andPalestine; no full-length report was published, but a number of papers were written. Hooker recognised three phytogeographical divisions: Western Syria and Palestine; Eastern Syria and Palestine; Middle and Upper mountain regions of Syria.[30]
Hooker visited Morocco from April to June 1871, in the company ofJohn Ball, George Maw and a young gardener from Kew, called Crump.[31] They published an account of their travels entitledJournal of a Tour in Marocco and The Great Atlas (1878).
This was undertaken with his friendAsa Gray, the leading American botanist of the day. They wished to investigate the connection between the floras of eastern United States and those of eastern continental Asia and Japan; and the line of demarcation between Arctic floras of America andGreenland. As probable causes they considered the Glacial periods and an earlier land connection with an Arctic continent. "A difficult question was why in the great mountain chains of the Western United States there appeared to be only a few botanical enclaves of plants of eastern-Asiatic afinities among plants of Mexican and more southern types."[32]
Hooker visited a number of cities and botanical institutions before moving west and climbing to 9,000 ft to camp atLa Veta. FromFort Garland they climbed theSierra Blanca at 14,500 ft. After returning to La Veta, they went beyondColorado Springs toPike's Peak. Next toDenver andSalt Lake City for an excursion into theWasatch Range. A journey of 29 hours took them toReno andCarson City, thenSilver City and ten days by wagon across theSierra Nevada. Thus they came to theYosemite andCalaveras Grove, and ended up in San Francisco. Hooker was back in Kew with 1,000 dried specimens by October.
His comments on his encounters include the following:
His views on the flora ofColorado andUtah: There are two temperate, and two cold or mountain floras, viz: 1. aprairie flora derived from the eastward; 2. a so-called desert and saline flora derived from the west; 3. a sub-alpine; 4. analpine flora, the two latter of widely different origin, and in one sense proper to the Rocky Mountain ranges.[34]
His overview of North American flora contained these elements:
While on theErebus, Hooker had read proofs ofCharles Darwin'sVoyage of the Beagle provided byCharles Lyell and had been very impressed by Darwin's skill as a naturalist. They had met once, before the Antarctic voyage embarked.[a] After Hooker's return to England, he was approached by Darwin who invited him to classify the plants that Darwin had collected in South America and theGalápagos Islands.[37] Hooker agreed and the pair began a lifelong friendship. On 11 January 1844 Darwin mentioned to Hooker his early ideas on thetransmutation of species andnatural selection,[38] and Hooker showed interest.[39] In 1847 he agreed to read Darwin's "Essay" explaining the theory,[40] and responded with notes giving Darwin calm critical feedback.[41] Their correspondence continued throughout thedevelopment of Darwin's theory and in 1858 Darwin wrote that Hooker was "the one living soul from whom I have constantly received sympathy".[42]
Freeman 1978 wrote "Hooker was Charles Darwin's greatest friend and confidant". Certainly they had extensive correspondence, and they also met face-to-face (Hooker visiting Darwin). Hooker and Lyell were the two people Darwin consulted (by letter) whenAlfred Russel Wallace's famous letter arrived atDown House, enclosing his paper on natural selection. Hooker was instrumental in creating the device whereby the Wallace paper was accompanied by Darwin's notes and his letter toAsa Gray (showing his prior realisation of natural selection) in a presentation to theLinnean Society. Hooker was the one who formally presented this material to the Linnean Society meeting in 1858. In 1859 the author ofThe Origin of Species recorded his indebtedness to Hooker's wide knowledge and balanced judgment.
In December 1859, Hooker published theIntroductory Essay to the Flora Tasmaniae, the final part of the Botany of the Antarctic Voyage. It was in this essay (which appeared just one month after the publication of Charles Darwin'sOn the Origin of Species), that Hooker announced his support for the theory of evolution by natural selection, thus becoming the first recognised man of science to publicly back Darwin.
At thehistoric debate on evolution held at theOxford University Museum on 30 June 1860, BishopSamuel Wilberforce,Benjamin Brodie andRobert FitzRoy spoke against Darwin's theory, and Hooker andThomas Henry Huxley defended it.[43][44][45][46] According to Hooker's own account, it was he and not Huxley who delivered the most effective reply to Wilberforce's arguments.[46][47]
Hooker acted as president of theBritish Association at itsNorwich meeting of 1868, when his address was remarkable for its championship of Darwinian theories. He was a close friend ofThomas Henry Huxley, a member of theX-Club (which dominated theRoyal Society in the 1870s and early 1880s), and the first of the three X-Clubbers in succession to becomePresident of the Royal Society. In 1862, he was elected a foreign member of theRoyal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
By his travels and his publications, Hooker built up a high scientific reputation at home. In 1855 he was appointed Assistant-Director of theRoyal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and in 1865 he succeeded his father as full Director, holding the post for twenty years. Under the directorship of father and son Hooker, the Royal Botanic gardens of Kew rose to world renown. At the age of thirty, Hooker was elected a fellow of theRoyal Society, and in 1873 he was chosen its president (till 1877). He received three of its medals: theRoyal Medal in 1854, theCopley in 1887 and theDarwin Medal in 1892. He continued to intersperse work at Kew with foreign exploration and collecting. His journeys to Palestine, Morocco and the United States all produced valuable information and specimens for Kew.
He started the seriesFlora Indica in 1855, together withThomas Thompson. Their botanical observations and the publication of theRhododendrons of Sikkim–Himalaya (1849–51), formed the basis of elaborate works on therhododendrons of theSikkimHimalaya and on the flora of India. His works were illustrated with lithographs byWalter Hood Fitch.
His greatest botanical work was theFlora of British India, published in seven volumes starting in 1872. On the publication of the last part in 1897, he was promoted Knight Grand Commander of theOrder of the Star of India (being made a Knight Commander of that Order in 1877). Ten years later, on attaining the age of ninety in 1907, he was awarded theOrder of Merit.
He was the author of numerous scientific papers and monographs, and his larger books included, in addition to those already mentioned, a standardStudents Flora of the British Isles and a monumental work, theGenera plantarum[48] (1860–83), based on the collections at Kew, in which he had the assistance ofGeorge Bentham. His collaboration with George Bentham was especially important. Bentham, an amateur botanist who worked at Kew for many years, was perhaps the leading botanical systematist of the 19th century.[49]The Handbook of the British flora, begun by Bentham and completed by Hooker, was the standard text for a hundred years. It was always known as 'Bentham & Hooker'.
In 1904, at the age of 87, Hooker publishedA sketch of the Vegetation of the Indian Empire. He continued the compilation of his father SirWilliam Jackson Hooker's project,Icones Plantarum (Illustrations of Plants), producing volumes eleven through nineteen, with most of the illustrations being prepared for him byMatilda Smith.
TheHerbarium at Kew was founded in 1853, and quickly grew in size and importance. At the time,Richard Owen was the Superintendent of the natural history departments of theBritish Museum, reporting only to the Head of the British Museum. Hooker, appointed in 1855 as Assistant Director of Kew, was the man most responsible for bringing foreign specimens to Kew.
There is no doubt that rivalry resulted between the British Museum, where there was the very important Herbarium of the Department of Botany, and Kew. The rivalry at times became extremely personal, especially between Joseph Hooker and Owen. ... At the root was Owen's feeling that Kew should be subordinate to the British Museum (and to Owen) and should not be allowed to develop as an independent scientific institution with the advantage of a great botanic garden.[b]
The relationship between the two men continued to deteriorate after Hooker became a supporter of Darwin's views and a member of theX-Club, who set out to get their way with the Royal Society. In 1868 Hooker had proposed that the whole of the huge herbarium collection ofJoseph Banks should be moved from the British Museum to Kew, a reasonable idea, but a threat to Owen's plans for a museum in South Kensington to house the natural history collections. Hooker cited mismanagement at the British Museum as a justification.[51][5]
After Joseph had succeeded his father as Director, in 1865, the independence of Kew was seriously threatened by the machinations of a member of parliament,Acton Smee Ayrton, whose appointment as First Commissioner of Works byGladstone in 1869 was greeted inThe Times with the prophecy that it would prove "another instance of Mr. Ayrton's unfortunate tendency to carry out what he thinks right in as unpleasant a manner as possible".[52] This was relevant because Kew was funded by the Board of Works, and the Director of Kew reported to the First Commissioner. The conflict between the two men lasted from 1870 to 1872, and there is a voluminous correspondence on the Ayrton Episode held at Kew.
Ayrton behaved in an extraordinary way, interfering in matters and approaching Hooker's colleagues behind his back, apparently with the aim of getting Hooker to resign, when the expenditure on Kew could be curtailed and diverted. Ayrton actually took staff appointments out of Hooker's hands.[53] He seemed not to value the scientific work, and to believe Kew should be just an amusement park. Hooker wrote:
My life has become utterly detestable and I do long to throw up the Directorship. What can be more humiliating than two years of wrangling with such a creature!
— Hooker to Bentham, 2 February 1872, inHuxley 1918, p. 165, Chapter XXXV The Ayrton Episode
Finally, Hooker asked to be put in communication with Gladstone's private secretary,Algernon West. A statement was drawn up over the signatures ofDarwin,Lyell,Huxley,Tyndall,Bentham and others. It was laid before Parliament byJohn Lubbock, and additional papers laid before the House of Lords.Lord Derby called for all the correspondence on the matter. The Treasury supported Hooker and criticised Ayrton's behaviour.[c]
One extraordinary fact emerged. There had been an official report on Kew, which had not previously been seen in public, which Ayrton had caused to be written by Richard Owen.[55] Hooker had not seen the report, and so had not been given right of reply. Nonetheless, the report was amongst the papers laid before Parliament, and it contained an attack on both the Hookers, and suggested (amongst much else) that they had mismanaged the care of their trees, and that their systematic approach to botany was nothing more than "attaching barbarous binomials to foreign weeds".[d] The discovery of this report no doubt helped to sway opinion in favour of Hooker and Kew (there was debate in the press as well as Parliament). Hooker replied to the Owen report in a point by point factual manner, and his reply was placed with the other papers on the case. When Ayrton was questioned about it in the debate led by Lubbock,[56] he replied that "Hooker was too low an official to raise questions of matter with a Minister of the Crown".[57]
The outcome was not a vote in the Commons, but a kind of truce until, in August 1874, Gladstone transferred Ayrton from the Board of Works to the office ofJudge Advocate-General, just before his government fell. Ayrton failed to get re-elected to Parliament. From that moment to this, the value of the Botanic Gardens has never been seriously questioned. In the midst of this crisis, Hooker was elected as President of theRoyal Society in 1873. This showed publicly the high regard which Hooker's fellow scientists had for him, and the great importance they attached to his work.
Hooker Oak inChico, California, was named after him.[62]Hooker Island inFranz Josef Land was named after him following its 1880 discovery.[63]
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