Joseph Hooker the traveller

Joseph Hooker's first major botanical expedition was on HMS Erebus as part of Captain James Clark Ross' Antarctica expedition (1839-1843).

A sketch of the Himalayas by Joseph Hooker

During his life time, Joseph Hooker travelled extensively. Travel and exploration were a major way in which aspiring men of science like Hooker could establish themselves during the nineteenth century. In the absence of established scientific career paths, the long years on board ship or abroad were major steps in crafting careers for themselves.

The Erebus voyage 1839-1843

Joseph Hooker's first major botanical expedition was on HMS Erebus as part of Captain James Clark Ross' Antarctica expedition (1839-1843).

Hooker’s passions for botany and travel were combined when he was appointed assistant surgeon aboard HMS Erebus, which – commanded by Sir James Clark Ross, and accompanied by its sister ship, the Terror – was to spend four years exploring the southern oceans. The ships took shelter from Antarctica’s winters in places such as New Zealand and Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania), and also visited the numerous tiny islands around Antarctica. These included Kerguelen’s Land, where Hooker was finally able to gratify his desire to knock penguins on the head (an ambition held since childhood, his grandfather having shown him an account of one of Cook's sailors killing penguins on the same distant rock). More importantly, the sojourns ashore allowed him to collect plants in relatively unexplored regions.

"No future botanist will probably ever visit the countries whither I am going, and that is a great attraction." J.D. Hooker in a letter to his father before the Erebus set sail, 3 Feb 1840

Before he set sail, Charles Lyell of Kinnordy (father of the geologist) gave Hooker the proofs of Charles Darwin’s Voyage of the Beagle. As he waited to set sail, Joseph read Darwin’s words eagerly, excited but a little overwhelmed at the ‘variety of acquirements, mental and physical, required in a naturalist who should follow in Darwin’s footsteps’ (Darwin 1888: 19–20).

From Hooker's Antarctic Journal held in the RBG Kew archive. Watercolours of Mount Erebus and Mount Terror, the volcanoes discovered on the voyage and named after the expedition ships.

When HMS Erebus returned to England in 1843, Hooker needed to establish his reputation and find paid, botanical employment. Fortunately William’s influence was sufficient to secure an Admiralty grant of £1000 to cover the cost of the Botany of the Antarctic Voyage’s plates, and Joseph received his Assistant Surgeon’s pay while he worked on it. The book eventually formed six large volumes: two each for the Flora Antarctica, 1844–47; the Flora Novae-Zelandiae, 1851–53; and the Flora Tasmaniae, 1853–59.

Hooker and India 1847-1851

In November 1847, Joseph Hooker was once again travelling. Leaving Southampton on board the HMS Sidon, Hooker’s next goal was India and its botanical treasures. On the way, Hooker visited and botanised in Madeira, Gibraltar, Alexandria, Cairo, Aden, Sri Lanka and Madras prior to landing in Calcutta in January 1848.

He began his trip in Calcutta, then travelled inland, initially by palanquin and sedan chair, but he found elephant riding much more comfortable. He told his aunt, that he had become quite adept at mounting the creature 'by stepping on a tusk, and gripping at a broader ear. And if I drop anything, hat or book, he picks it up with his trunk and adroitly tosses it over his head into my lap.' [Hooker to Ellen Jacobsen, 8 April 1848 JDH_2_3_10_1-6].

As well as collecting plants, Hooker took regular measurements of temperature and other meteorological readings, which he send to a Professor Wheatstone co-inventor of the electric telegraph, telling him 'My objects are purely botanical; but I hope, by the careful use of good instruments, to obtain data for calculating the effects of climate on the vegetation of large areas.' [JDH_1_10_47-50]

In Darjeeling, Hooker met Brian Houghton Hodgson, a British diplomat, administrator, Sanskrit scholar and expert on Nepali language and culture, who invited Hooker to share his bungalow a couple of months after Joseph arrived in Darjeeling. The bungalow had a spectacular view that Hooker loved of Kinchin junga (now Kanchenjunga), the highest mountain in India, but then believed to be the highest in the world.

In his first trek from Darjeeling, Hooker collected the new species he would name Rhododendron Dalhousiae [now dalhousieae], in honour of Christina Dalhousie, the wife of India’s new Governor-General, with whom Hooker had travelled out. For the journey, Hooker hired several Lepchas (Lepchas, known as Rongpa in Sikkimese, were one of Sikkim’s ethnic groups) to collect and dry his plants. He praised the Lepchas' skill as woodsmen, describing them as hardy, agile and resourceful. They knew the forest and its plants well, providing Hooker with considerable assistance.

From Darjeeling, Hooker set-off for his most important goal: the Himalayan state of Sikkim. In the published account of his travels, the Himalayan Journals, or notes of a naturalist (1855), Hooker commented on the importance of the distribution of plants in Sikkim, since it combined 'the botanical characters of several others', it offered 'material for tracing the direction in which genera and species have migrated, the causes that favour their migration, and the laws that determine the types or forms of one region, which represent those of another' (Vol. 1: 37–38). Hooker hoped that as plant distribution developed into a more rigorous study, it would eventually lead to the discovery of the laws that explained why particular plants grew where they did. These laws would not only be fascinating in themselves, but would have practical applications too because the British Empire was not just built on industry, but also on plants. As he collected samples of India rubber and tea, Hooker was also looking for the laws that would allow botanists to predict where valuable, new plants could be found, and also to know which plants could successfully be transplanted to new countries where they could be cultivated profitably.

Pen and ink sketch of Lachen Lachoong valley, Sikkim, India, by Joseph Dalton Hooker
Pen and ink sketch of Lachen Lachoong valley, Sikkim, India, by Joseph Dalton Hooker (c) RBG Kew

During his time in Sikkim Hooker was imprisoned by the Rajah of Sikkim for crossing a border they had been forbidden from crossing. The border violation was used as a pretext to arrest and imprison Campbell and Hooker. Hodgson wrote to William Hooker that 'the real grievance [of the Rajah] is, that not merely your son, a traveller, but that a representative of Government [Campbell] goes north, exploring the frontier & entering Thibet, against the wish and remonstrance of Sikkim.'

Once this imprisionment was known, a special commissioner, C.H. Lushington, immediately threatened the Rajah with invasion, promising him that British troops would 'exact a severe retribution' unless the captives were released. The Rajah capitulated, blaming the Dewan, who in turn blamed others. Campbell and Hooker were released and showered with gifts and apologies. The Rajah had his British pension withdrawn and some of his territory annexed, but one British official felt the British had been too harsh.

Following his release, Hooker spent 1850 travelling with Thomas Thomson, an old friend from Glasgow University days, who was now an East India Company surgeon. The two spent nine months in Assam where, with the help of numerous indigenous guides and collectors, they collected about 2,000 species of flowering plants, including many stunningly beautiful orchids, within a ten-mile radius around their camp, together with 150 ferns and many mosses, lichens and fungi.


Hooker and Thomson returned to Calcutta in December and in late January 1851, boarded a steamer to England. Hooker had collected over 3,000 species in Sikkim and Bengal, plus all the others in Assam. He had discovered plants growing at higher altitudes that anyone had previously believed possible (herbaceous plants growing as high as 18,000 feet, and some cryptogams going even higher). His haul also included drawings of over 700 plants, plus numerous sketches of landscape, geology and the local peoples.

In 1849, while Hooker was still in India, his father arranged to publish the first of three parts of The Rhododendrons of the Sikkim-Himalaya, a summary of the many species of the plant that Joseph Hooker had discovered during his travels (at least 25 were new to European science). The beautiful plates by Walter Hood Fitch were based on Joseph’s field sketches. When the Athenaeum reviewed the first part, they described the speed with which these newly discovered plants had been published as 'one of the marvels of our time'.  (Athenaeum, No. 1122, 28 April 1849)

Hooker produced a second lavishly illustrated book of Indian flowers,Illustrations of Himalayan Plants, in 1855. This was largely a memorial to his friend John Fergusson Cathcart, who had commissioned Indian artists to produce almost a thousand botanical illustrations which were bequeathed to Kew after Cathcart’s premature death in 1851. 

Read & watch