William Jackson Hooker

William Jackson Hooker was born on 6 July 1785 at 71–7 Magdalen Street, Norwich.[9] A child named William Jacson [sic] Hooker was christened by his parents Joseph and Lydia Hooker at the nonconformist Tabernacle in Norwich on 9 November 1785.[10] He attended the Norwich Grammar School from about 1792 until his late teens,[6] but none of the school records from the period he was there have been kept, and little is known of his schooldays. He developed an interest in entomology, reading and natural history during his boyhood.[8]

In 1805, Hooker discovered a moss (now known as Buxbaumia aphylla) when out walking on Rackheath, north of Norwich.[11][12]He visited the Norwich botanist Sir James Edward Smith to consult his Linnean collections.[1] Smith advised the young Hooker to contact the botanist Dawson Turner about his discovery.[12]

Upon reaching the age of 21 he inherited an estate in Kent from his godfather.[13] His independent means allowed him to travel and develop his interest in natural history.[14]

As a young man Hooker was fascinated by the birds of Norfolk and spent time studying them on the Broads and the Norfolk coast. He became skilled in drawing them and understanding their behaviour.[8] He also studied insects and, when still at school, his skills were appreciated by the Reverend William Kirby. In 1805, Kirby dedicated the Omphalapion hookerorum, a species of weevil, to him and his brother Joseph: "I am indebted to an excellent naturalist, Mr. W. J. Hooker, of Norwich, who first discovered it, for this species. Many other nondescripts have been taken by him and his brother, Mr. J. Hooker, and I name this insect after them, as a memorial of my sense of their ability and exertions in the service of my favourite department of natural history."[15]

In 1805 Hooker went to be trained in estate management at Starston Hall, Norfolk, perhaps because of the need to be able to manage his own newly acquired estates.[16] He lived there with Robert Paul, a gentleman farmer.[16] In 1806 he was introduced to Sir Joseph Banks, the president of the Royal Society. He elected to the Linnean Society of London that year.[17]

Hooker's illustrations for Sir James Edward Smith's paper Characters of Hookeria (1808)

When a young man, Hooker gained the patronage and friendship of some of most important naturalists in eastern England, including Sir James Edward Smith, who had founded the Linnean Society of London in 1788 and owned Carl Linnaeus's collection of plants and books, the botanist and antiquarian Dawson Turner, and Joseph Banks.[9]

In 1807, when Hooker was bitten by an adder when walking near Burgh Castle and badly hurt, he was found by friends and taken to Dawson Turner's house, where he was cared for until he recovered completely from the effects of the snake's bite.[18] Once he had fully recovered, he accompanied Turner and his wife Mary on a tour of Scotland. In 1808 he again travelled to Scotland, this time accompanied by his friend William Borrer. During this journey he discovered a new species of moss, Andreaea nivalis, on Ben Nevis, which may have led to him publishing a paper Some Observations on the Genus Andreaea in 1810.[19][9]

Hooker produced the illustrations for James Edward Smith's paper Characters of Hookeria, a new Genus of Mosses, with Descriptions of Ten Species, a genus named by Smith in honour of William and his older brother Joseph. Hooker had discovered a specimen of the moss in the countryside around Holt.[20] From 1806 to 1809 he was a constant guest of Dawson Turner in Yarmouth, where he produced the illustrations for Turner's four-volume Historia Fucorum. He also spent time in London, where he took up rooms in Frith Street, near the British Museum.[15]

By 1807 Hooker had begun work as a supervising manager at a brewery at Halesworth, in partnership with Dawson Turner and Samuel Paget.[21][22] Sharing a quarter of the company, he lived in the brewery house, which had a large garden and a greenhouse in which he grew orchids.[22] The brewing venture proved to be unsuccessful, for he had no capacity for business.[23] He remained as the manager there for ten years, living at 15 Quay Street, Halesworth.[21]

An etching owned by Sir Joseph Banks, which Hooker included in his Journal of a tour in Iceland (1813)

Hooker inherited enough money to be able to travel at his own expense. His first botanical expedition abroad—at the suggestion of the naturalist Sir Joseph Banks, who had made a previous visit in 1772—was to Iceland, in the summer of 1809.[24][14] He sailed on the Margaret and Anne, arriving at Reykjavík in June. That month an attempt at Icelandic independence was staged by the Danish adventurer Jørgen Jørgensen.[25] Two months later, HMS Talbot anchored in Reykjavík harbour and her commander promptly deposed and arrested Jorgensen, and restored the governor.

During his return voyage, the Margaret and Anne, in a dead calm, was discovered to be on fire, the result of sabotage which was afterwards found to have been planned by Danish prisoners. Hooker and the ship's company were all rescued, but the fire destroyed most of his drawings and notes.[26] Banks later offered Hooker the use of his own papers, and with these materials, along with the surviving parts of his own journal, his good memory aided him to publish an account of the island, its inhabitants and flora: his A Journal of a Tour in Iceland (1809) was privately circulated in 1811 and published two years later.[27][14]

In 1810–11 he made extensive preparations, and sacrifices which proved financially serious, with a view to travelling to Ceylon, to accompany the newly-appointed governor, Sir Robert Brownrigg.[14] He sold property inherited from his godfather, William Jackson, to raise the necessary capital for the journey. Political upheaval there led to the project being abandoned.[21][28] In 1812 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of London.[9]

In 1813, encouraged by Sir Joseph Banks, he considered travelling to Java, but was dissuaded from the idea by friends and family.[29]

In 1814 he travelled in Europe for nine months, going to Paris with the Turners, then travelling alone to Switzerland, southern France, and Italy, where he studied plants and visited notable botanists.[30] The following year he married the eldest daughter of his friend Dawson Turner. Settling at Halesworth, he devoted himself to the formation of his herbarium, which became of worldwide renown among botanists.[14][9] In 1815, he was made a corresponding member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.[31]

Plan of Glasgow's Royal Botanic Garden in 1825

Hooker in 1834

In February 1820, Hooker was appointed as the regius professorship of botany in the University of Glasgow,[32] taking over from the Scottish physician and botanist Robert Graham, and inheriting a small botanic garden that was underfunded and lacking in plants.[33] In May he was received by the University and read his inaugural thesis in Latin, written by his father-in-law, Dawson Turner.[32] Hooker was faced with the prospect of delivering lectures to students, when he had never previously taught, and was ignorant of some aspects of botany:[32] his position within the medical faculty inspired him to study for a medical degree.[34]

He soon became popular as a lecturer, his style being both clear and eloquent, and his people such as local army officers came to attend them.[35][36] For 15 years he delivered a summer course on botany, required to be studied by all medical students—for the remaining months of the year he was free to study, work on his publications and his herbarium, and correspond with other botanists.[37][38] His classroom was remarkable for having drawings of plants on display to assist the students, and their course included trips to study plants, organised by Hooker.[39] Student numbers increased from 30 in 1820 to 130 ten years later.[38] He earned £144 in his first year, which later increased,[40] but still needed to supplement his income by tutoring two boys from wealthy families, who lived with the family.[40]

His years at Glasgow were the his most productive, when he was known as the most active botanist in the country.[7] In 1821 he brought out the Flora Scotica, written to be used by his botany students.[35] He was awarded a doctorate by Glasgow University in 1821.[9] He worked with the lithographer and botanist Thomas Hopkirk to establish the Royal Botanic Institution of Glasgow and to lay out and develop the Botanic Gardens. He was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1823.[31]

Under Hooker, the Botanic Gardens enjoyed remarkable success and became prominent in the botanic world.[41] The garden was his responsibility and he set to work developing it with the help of his extensive network of friends and acquaintances. Principal among these was Sir Joseph Banks, who promised Kew's help.[34] The botanic gardens steadily acquired new plants, often from visiting naturalists, or from students who had travelled.[42] His work on the botanic garden resulted in experts expressing the view that "Glasgow would not suffer by comparison with any other establishment in Europe".[35]

During his professorship at Glasgow, his numerous published works included Flora Londinensis, British Flora, Flora Boreali-Americana, Icones Filicum, The Botany of Captain Beechey's Voyage to the Bering Sea, Icones Plantarum, Exotic Flora (1823-7), 13 volumes of Curtis's Botanical Magazine (from 1827), and the first seven volumes of Annals of Botany.[43]

He was made a Knight of the Royal Guelphic Order and a Knight Bachelor, in recognition of his work at Glasgow and services to botany in 1836.[9] but, according to the author Mea Allan, from June 1839 the "dignity of the position was stripped to one of ridicule and his work was dismissed as of no account".[44]

The Kew Gardens Palm House, from Tallis's Illustrated London (1851)

The Museum of Economic Botany, Kew

In 1841 he was appointed Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, on the resignation of William Townsend Aiton.[45] Following his appointment as director, he wrote "I feel as if I were to begin life over again", in a letter to Dawson Turner.[46] He started on an annual salary of £300, with an additional allowance of £200.[46] According to the author Mea Allan, who described Hooker as a man with "drive, enthusiasm and creative ability", he was eminently suited for the post, being a professional botanist, an artist, a leader with connections to others in the botanical world, who was knowledgeable about plants from Britian and those collected from around the world.[47]

Under his direction, the gardens expanded considerably in size. Initially about 10 acres (4.0 ha) in size, they were extended to 15 acres (6.1 ha) in 1841.[48] During his directorship, an arboretum of 270 acres (1.1 km²) was introduced, many new glass-houses were erected, and a museum of economic botany was established.[49] The gardens and glasshouses were opened daily to the visiting public, who were allowed to wander freely there for the first time. Sir William himself wandered around during opening hours, lending his advice.[50]

Hooker lived with his family at West Park, a large house in which he accommodated 13 rooms of books in his library, which was seen as a public institution by the world's botanical experts, who were never turned away.[51]

In 1843 the Palm House was constructed at Kew.[52] .

In June 1815 he married Maria Sarah Turner,[53] the eldest daughter of Dawson Turner and Mary Palgrave. Maria was an amateur artist who collected mosses, and who with her sister Elizabeth illustrated them for her husband.[5][29] The couple toured the Lake District and across Ireland on their honeymoon, before travelling to Scotland.[54]

They had five children. William Dawson Hooker (born 1816) was a naturalist who trained as a doctor. He published Notes on Norway (1837 and 1839). He emigrated with his new wife to Jamaica to practise medicine, but died at Kingston, aged 24. Joseph Dalton Hooker (born 1817) became a botanist and succeeded his father as the Director at Kew. The three daughters in the family were Maria (born 1819), Elizabeth (born 1820), and Mary Harriet (born 1825), who died aged sixteen.[5][9]

Hooker in c.1864

He was engaged on the Synopsis filicum with the botanist John Gilbert Baker when he contracted a throat infection then epidemic at Kew.[55] He died in 1865 and was buried at St. Anne's Church, Kew. He was succeeded at Kew Gardens by his son.

• 
  Jungermannia Spinulosa, from Hooker's first scientific work, British Jungermanniae (1816)
• 
  Some Observations on the Genus Andraea (1810)
• 
  Xanthochymus dulcis, from Curtis's botanical magazine (1831)
• 
  Valeriana pauciflora, from Flora boreali-Americana (1840)
• 
  Bromelia aquilegia, from The Paradisus Londinensis (1805)
• 
  Lewisia rediviva, from The botany of Captain Beechey's voyage (1841)
• 
  Gleichenia acutifolia, from Species filium (1846)