William Jackson Hooker

Sir William Jackson Hooker

William Jackson Hooker in 1851 by Thomas Herbert Maguire
Born 6 July 1785
Norwich
Died 12 August 1865 (1865-08-13) (aged 80)
Nationality British
Fields Botany
Institutions Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
Alma mater Norwich School
Known for Founding the Herbarium at Kew
Author abbrev. (botany) Hook.

Signature

Sir William Jackson Hooker KH FRS FRSE FLS DCL LLD (6 July 1785 – 12 August 1865) was an English systematic botanist and organiser, and botanical illustrator. He held the post of Regius Professor of Botany at Glasgow University, and was Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. He enjoyed the friendship and support of Sir Joseph Banks for his exploring, collecting and organising work. His son, Joseph Dalton Hooker, succeeded him to the Directorship of Kew Gardens.[1]

Biography

Hooker was born in Norwich. His father, Joseph Hooker of Exeter, a member of the same family as the celebrated theologian Richard Hooker, devoted much of his time to the study of German literature and the cultivation of curious plants. He was educated at Norwich School and afterwards took up as a recreation the study of natural history, especially ornithology and entomology.[2] He subsequently confined his attention to botany, on the recommendation of Sir James Edward Smith, whom he had consulted respecting a rare moss.

Hooker inherited enough money to be able to travel at his own expense. His first botanical expedition—at the suggestion of Sir Joseph Banks—was to Iceland, in the summer of 1809. The specimens he collected, along with his notes and drawings, were destroyed by fire on the homeward voyage; an incident in which he nearly lost his life. His good memory, however, aided him to publish an account of the island, and of its inhabitants and flora; his Tour in Iceland, 1809, was privately circulated in 1811 and reprinted in 1813.

In 1810–1811 he made extensive preparations, and sacrifices which proved financially serious, with a view to accompany Sir Robert Brownrigg to Ceylon, but political upheaval led to the project being abandoned. In 1814 he spent nine months in botanizing excursions in France, Switzerland and northern Italy, and in the following year he married Maria Dawson Turner, the eldest daughter of Dawson Turner, banker, of Great Yarmouth, and sister-in-law of Francis Palgrave.

Settling at Halesworth, Suffolk, he devoted himself to the formation of his herbarium, which became of worldwide renown among botanists. In 1816 the British Jungermanniae, his first scientific work, was published. This was succeeded by a new edition of William Curtis's Flora Londinensis, for which he wrote the descriptions (1817–1828); by a description of the Plantae cryptogamicae of Alexander von Humboldt and Aimé Bonpland; by the Muscologia, a very complete account of the mosses of Britain and Ireland, prepared in conjunction with Thomas Taylor (1818);[3] and by his Musci exotici (2 vols., 1818–1820), devoted to new foreign mosses and other cryptogamic plants.

In 1820 he accepted the regius professorship of botany in the University of Glasgow where he soon became popular as a lecturer; his style was both clear and ready. The following year he brought out the Flora Scotica, in which the natural method of arrangement of British plants was given with the artificial. He worked with the Glasgow botanist and lithographer Thomas Hopkirk to establish the Royal Botanic Institution of Glasgow and to lay out and develop the Glasgow Botanic Gardens. In 1815, he was made a corresponding member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, and, in 1833, his status was changed to that of foreign member. He was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1823.[4]

Hooker succeeded in convincing the British government that botanists should be appointed to their expeditions. While his works were in progress his herbarium received large and valuable additions from all parts of the globe, and his position as a botanist was thus vastly improved. He was made a Knight of the Royal Guelphic Order and a Knight Bachelor in 1836, and in 1841 he was appointed director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, on the resignation of William Townsend Aiton.[5] Under his direction the gardens expanded from 10 to 75 acres (4 to 30 Ha), with an arboretum of 270 acres (1.1 km2), many new glass-houses were erected, and a museum of economic botany was established. He was engaged on the Synopsis filicum with John Gilbert Baker when he contracted a throat infection then epidemic at Kew. He died in 1865 and is buried at St. Anne's Church, Kew.

He was succeeded at Kew Gardens by his son Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker, a rare example of an outstanding man succeeded in his post by an equally outstanding son.

Works

References

  1. ↑ Allen, Mea 1967. The Hookers of Kew 1785–1911. Joseph, London.
  2. ↑ Stearn, William T. (December 1965). "The Self-Taught Botanists Who Saved the Kew Botanic Garden". Taxon. International Association for Plant Taxonomy (IAPT). 14 (9): 294. doi:10.2307/1216740. JSTOR 1216740.
  3. ↑  Boulger, George Simonds (1898). "Taylor, Thomas (d.1848)". In Lee, Sidney. Dictionary of National Biography. 55. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
  4. ↑ "Book of Members, 1780–2010: Chapter H" (PDF). American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Retrieved 9 September 2016.
  5. ↑ Kew had formerly been a royal garden; Hooker was the first Director under its new state ownership. Turrill W.B. 1959. The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, past and present. London.
  6. ↑ IPNI.  Hook.
  7. ↑ Hooker, Sir William Jackson; G. A. Walker Arnott, Esq. (1841). The Botany of Captain Beechey's voyage. Henry George Bohn.

Sources

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