20/06/2006
History of New South Wales From the Records
VOLUME 1 - GOVERNOR PHILLIP 1783-1789G. B. Barton - 1889
PART III
Sir Joseph Banks
SIR JOSPEH BANKS, who was born at Argyle-street, London, on 13 February, 1743-4, was the only son of William Banks of Revesby Abbey, in Lincolnshire, and Sarah, daughter of William Bate. He received his early education under a private tutor. At the age of nine he was sent to Harrow School, and thence transferred to Eton when he was thirteen. He left that school in his eighteenth year, and then entered as a gentleman commoner at Christ Church College, Oxford, in December, 1790. His liking for botany - which had. shown itself during his boyhood - increased while at the University, and he warmly embraced the other branches of natural history. Finding that no lectures were given in botany, he sought and obtained permission to procure a teacher to be paid by the students. He then went by stage-coach to Cambridge, and brought back with him Mr. Israel Lyons, astronomer and botanist, who afterwards published a small book on the Cambridge Flora. Many years subsequently, Lyons, through the interest of Banks, was appointed astronomer under Captain Phipps, afterwards Lord Mulgrave, on his voyage towards the North Pole.
Banks's father died in 1761, during his first year at Oxford, leaving him an ample fortune and estate at Revesby. He left Oxford in December, 1763, after taking an honorary degree. In February, 1764, he came of age and took possession of his paternal fortune. He had already attracted attention in the University by his superior attainments in natural history, and in May, 1766, he was elected Fellow of the Royal Society. During the same summer he went to Newfoundland to collect plants with his friend, Lieutenant Phipps. He returned to England the following winter by way of Lisbon. After his return, an intimacy was established between Dr. Daniel Solander and himself, which only ended by the death of the former. Solander had been a favourite pupil of Linnaeus, and at the time when Banks first came to know him was employed as an assistant librarian at the British Museum. He afterwards became Banks's companion round the world, and subsequently his librarian until his death.
By his influence with Lord Sandwich, First Lord of the Admiralty, Banks obtained permission to accompany Cook's expedition in the Endeavour, equipped at his own expense, taking with him Dr. Solander, two draughtsmen - Mr. Buchan for landscape, and Mr. Sydney Parkinson for objects of natural history - and two attendants. The journal which he kept was largely utilised by Dr. Hawkesworth in his relation of the Voyages of Carteret, Wallis, and Cook. The Endeavour left England in August, 1768, and returned in June, 1771.
The success of this voyage, and the enthusiasm it evoked, led to a second voyage under the same commander in the Resolution. At the solicitation of Lord Sandwich, Banks offered to accompany this expedition. The offer being accepted, the outfit was begun, and Zoffany the painter, three draughtsmen, two secretaries, and nine other skilled assistants were engaged. The accommodation on board was found insufficient, and additional cabins were built on deck. These were found on trial not only to affect the ship's sailing powers, but also her stability. They were therefore ordered to be demolished, and Banks abandoned his intention of sailing in the Resolution. Dr. Lind had been appointed naturalist to the expedition under a grant of £4,000, but on hearing of Banks's decision he declined the post. Dr. Johann Reinhold Forster and his son George ultimately sailed with the expedition. Being disappointed in this quarter, Banks resolved to visit Iceland with his followers and Dr. Solander. He reached that island in August, 1772, climbed to the top of Hecla, and returned in six weeks, the results being summarised in Dr. Yon. Troils' volume.
Sir John Pringle, president of the Royal Society, retired from the chair in 1777, and Banks was chosen as his successor on 30th November, 1778, and held that distinguished position until his death. He found, it is stated, secretaries assuming the power which belonged to the president alone, and other abuses which he determined to rectify. This intention, coupled with the fact that natural history had been less cultivated than mathematics in the Royal Society, caused an amount of discontent amongst some of the members, which broke out a few years later in the session of 1783-4. .... A motion was ultimately carried in support of the president's conduct, and a few members left the society. Harmony, however, was restored, and the ascendancy of Banks never again questioned.
In March, 1779, Banks married Dorothea, daughter of William Weston Hugessen, of Provender, in Kent, who survived him. He was created a Baronet in 1781, invested with the Order of the Bath in July, 1795, and sworn of the Privy Council in March, 1797.
In 1802 he was chosen a member of the National Institute of France, and his letter of thanks in response for the honour was the occasion of a bitter anonymous attack by an old opponent, Dr. Horsley, who taxed him with want of patriotic feeling.
Towards the close of his life he was greatly troubled with gout, so much so as to lose at times the use of his limbs. He died at his house at Spring Grove, Isleworth, on 19 June, 1820, leaving a widow, but no children. By his express desire, he was buried in the simplest manner in the parish church. By will he left £200 per annum to his librarian at his death, Robert Brown, with the use of his herbarium and library during his life, the reversion being to the British Museum. Brown made over these collections to the nation within a short time after acquiring possession of them. Francis Bauer was also provided for during his life, to enable him to continue his exquisite drawings from new plants at Kew.
The character which Banks has left behind him is that of a munificent patron of science rather than an actual worker himself. His own writings are comparatively trifling. He wrote A Short scientific Account of the Causes of the Disease called the Blight, Mildew, and Rust, which was published in 1805, reaching a second edition in 1806, and re-edited in 1807, besides being reprinted by W. Curtis in his Observations on the British Grasses, and in the Pamphleteer for 1813. He was the author of an anonymous tract on the Propriety of Allowing a Qualified Exportation of Wool in 1782, and in 1809 he brought out a small work on the merino sheep, a pet subject of his as well as of the King, George III. There were some short articles by him in the Transactions of the Horticultural Society, a few in the Archaeologia, one in the Linnean Society's Transactions, and a short essay on the Economy of a Park, in vol. 39 of Young's Annals of Agriculture. He published Kaempfer's Icones Plantarum in 1791, in folio, and directed the issue of Roxburgh's Coromandel Plants, 1795-1819, 3 vols., folio. He seems to have given up all thought of publishing the results of his collections on the death of Dr. Solander, in 1782, by apoplexy, although the plates were engraved and the text drawn up in proper order for press. The manuscripts are preserved in the botanical department of the British Museum, in Cromwell Road.
His collections were freely accessible to all scientific men of every nation, and his house in Soho Square became the gathering-place of science. The library was catalogued by Dr. Dryander, and issued in five volumes in 1800-5, a work greatly valued on account of its accuracy. Fabricius described his insects; Broussonet received his specimens of fishes; Gaertner, Vahl, and Robert Brown have largely used the stores of plants, and four editions of Desiderata were issued previously to the publication of the Catalogue. Banks spared neither pains nor cost in enriching his library, which, at his death, must be considered as being the richest of its class. It is still kept by itself in a room at the British Museum, although the natural history collections have been transferred to the new building at South Kensington.
An unstinted eulogy was pronounced by Cuvier before the Academie Royale des Sciences in the April following the death of Banks. In this he testifies to the generous intervention of Banks on behalf of foreign naturalists. When the collections made by La billardiere during D'Entrecasteaux's expedition fell by fortune of war into British hands and were brought to England, Banks hastened to send them back to France without having even glanced at them, writing to M. de Jussieu that he would not steal a single botanic idea from those who had gone in peril of their lives to get them. Ten times were parcels addressed to the Royal Gardens in Paris, which had been captured by English cruisers. He constantly acted as scientific adviser to the King; it was he who directed the despatch of collectors abroad for the enrichment of the gardens at Kew.
The influence of his strong will was manifest in all his under takings and voyages; he was to be found in the first boat which visited each unknown land. After his return he became almost autocratic in his power; to him everything of a scientific character seemed to gravitate naturally, and his long tenure of the presidential chair of the Royal Society led him to exercise over it a vigorous authority, which has been denounced as despotic.
Dr. Kippis's account in his Pamphlet seems very fairly to describe the disposition of Banks:- "The temper of the president has been represented as greatly despotic. Whether it be so or not, I am unable to determine from personal knowledge. I do not find that a charge of this kind is brought against him by those who have it in their power to be better judges of the matter. He appears to be manly, liberal, and open in his behaviour to his acquaintance, and very persevering in his friendship. Those who have formed the closet intimacy with him have continued their connection and maintained their esteem and regard. This was the case with Captain Cook and Dr. Solander, and other instances might, I believe, be mentioned to the same purpose. The man who, for a course of years and without diminution, preserves the affection of those friends who know him best, is not likely to have unpardonable faults of temper. It is possible that Sir Joseph Banks may have assumed a firm tone in the execution of his duty as president of the society, and have been free in his rebukes where he apprehended that there was any occasion for them. If this had been the case, it is not surprising that he should not be universally popular." - From the Dictionary of National Biography, edited by Leslie Stephen.
A memoir of Sir Joseph Banks, with a portrait, appeared in the New Monthly Magazine for August, 1820, pp. 185-194.
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