Sir William Jackson Hooker (1785-1865)

Born at Norwich in 1785, Sir William Jackson Hooker showed an early interest in botany and in 1809, through the encouragement of Sir Joseph Banks, made an expedition to Iceland. In 1815 he married the daughter of the brewer and botanist Dawson Turner, and settled at Halesworth in Suffolk. In these years he laid the foundations of his herbarium, later to form the basis of the Herbarium at Kew.

In 1820 he was appointed Regius Professor of Botany at the University of Glasgow, where he was a popular lecturer and increased his collections. He began the Botanical Magazine in 1826, and was knighted in 1836.

Sir William had long felt that the Royal Gardens at Kew, which had fallen into neglect after Banks’s death, had the potential to become the centre of botanical science for Great Britain and its empire. In 1841 he was appointed Kew’s first official Director. At Kew his innovations included the Palm House, the Museums of Economic Botany, the Herbarium and Library, the admission of the public to the Gardens on weekdays, and the publication of an official guidebook.

Hooker’s extensive foreign correspondence and his excellent relationships with institutions such as the Foreign and Colonial Offices, the Admiralty and the East India Company established Kew’s position at the forefront of science.

Further information

There are several portraits of Sir William Hooker in the collections of the National Portrait Gallery.

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