12 May 2017

Sir Joseph Hooker at 200

Kew will be celebrating the 200th anniversary of Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker’s birth this year, with a number of events and also further work on his correspondence

By Cam Sharp Jones

Joseph Hooker with group in the Rockies La Vita Pass Colorado, 1877

Joseph Dalton Hooker was born on 30 June 1817 in Halesworth, Suffolk. The second child of William Jackson Hooker, Joseph would, during the course of his life, become a ‘botanical trailblazer’ - travelling across the globe to collect plants and theorising on plant species diversity and geography. Joseph Hooker would also become Kew’s second and most illustrious Director, overseeing the establishment of the first Jodrell Laboratory, the Marianne North Gallery and the expansion of the Gardens' herbarium and economic botany collections.

Hooker was also a prolific correspondent – writing to family, friends and colleagues up until his death in 1911. We are fortunate here at Kew to hold an extensive archival collection reflecting both his personal papers – such as his letters to his family during his travels in India, and those created during his tenure as Assistant Director and then Director of Kew. 

The Joseph Hooker Correspondence Project is currently working on digitising and transcribing a large selection of Joseph Hooker’s correspondence, and we are delighted to announce that over 1,000 of his letters are now available to view online. This portal allows visitors to search the letters and where available, read the summaries and transcripts of the letters. We also plan to release further letters and data in the coming months – so watch this space.

Highlights of the current online collection are the letters written by Hooker to Charles Darwin, a long-time friend and confidant, as well as those to his family during his adventures in Antarctica and India. These letters provide wonderful insights into the hardships of botanical collecting and the trials of travel during the first half of the nineteenth century. 

2017 is also an important year for the Joseph Hooker Correspondence Project more widely here at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Not only are we continuing to scan, transcribe and make publicly available the thousands of letters Joseph Hooker sent during his life time, but we are also working with colleagues from across the Gardens to further raise awareness of Hooker and his important work.

We will be hosting a conference celebrating the ongoing impact Joseph Hooker has had on modern botanical science. The ‘Joseph Dalton Hooker Bicentenary Meeting: The making of Modern botany’ will be held on 30 June 2017 at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and will bring together experts on subjects such as botanical illustration, Antarctic flora and botanical classification.

Currently on display in Kew's Shirley Sherwood Gallery is the exhibition ‘Joseph Hooker: Putting plants in their place’. This brings together archival, three dimensional and illustrative material from the Kew collections to explore Joseph Hooker's life and work. The exhibition will be open until 17 September 2017 and various tours and talks are also being held.

We are also preparing a display for the Reading Room in the Herbarium, Library, Art & Archives building from mid-June, which will further explore aspects of the Joseph Hooker archival collections held by Kew. 

In the Gardens, the Kew volunteer guides will be providing walking tours, allowing visitors to find out how instrumental Joseph Hooker was in shaping botany and the landscape at Kew. On the weekend of 1-2 July the Gardens will host a Joseph Hooker Bicentenary celebration with family activities, explorer’s camp and talks. The Shirley Sherwood Gallery will also be hosting a ‘Kew After Hours’ event on the evening of 29 June. 

- Cam Sharp Jones -