Everything about Joseph Dalton Hooker totally explained
Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker,
OM,
GCSI,
MD,
FRS (
June 30,
1817 –
December 10,
1911) was an
English botanist and
explorer.
Early life and voyage on HMS Erebus
Hooker was born in
Halesworth,
Suffolk. He was the second son of the famous botanist Sir
William Jackson Hooker and Maria Sarah Turner, eldest daughter of the banker
Dawson Turner and sister-in-law of
Francis Palgrave. From age seven, Hooker attended his father's lectures at
Glasgow University where he was
Regius Professor of Botany. Joseph formed an early interest in
plant distribution and the voyages of explorers like Captain
James Cook. He was educated at the Glasgow High School and went on to study medicine at Glasgow University, graduating
M.D. in 1839. This degree qualified him for employment in the Naval Medical Service: he joined renowned polar explorer Captain
James Clark Ross's
Antarctic expedition to the South Magnetic Pole after receiving a commission as Assistant-Surgeon on HMS
Erebus.
The expedition consisted of two ships,
HMS Erebus and
HMS Terror; it was the last major voyage of exploration made entirely under sail. Hooker was the youngest of the 128 man crew. He sailed on the
Erebus and was assistant to
Robert McCormick, who in addition to being the ship's Surgeon was instructed to collect zoological and geological specimens. The ships sailed on September 30 1839. Before journeying to Antarctica they visited
Madeira,
Tenerife,
Santiago and
Quail Island in the
Cape Verde archipelago,
St Paul Rocks,
Trinidade east of Brazil,
St Helena, and the
Cape of Good Hope. Hooker made
plant collections at each location and while travelling drew these and specimens of
algae and sea life pulled aboard using tow nets.
From the Cape they entered the southern ocean. Their first stop was the
Crozet Islands where they set down on
Possession Island to deliver coffee to sealers. They departed for the
Kerguelen Islands where they'd spend several days. Hooker identified 18 flowering plants, 35
mosses and
liverworts, 25
lichens and 51 algae, including some that were not described by surgeon William Anderson when James Cook had visited the islands in 1772. The expedition spent some time in
Hobart,
Van Diemen's Land, and then moved on to the
Auckland Islands and
Campbell Island, and onward to Antarctica to locate the South Magnetic Pole. After spending 5 months in the Antarctic they returned to resupply in Hobart, then went on to
Sydney, and the
Bay of Islands in
New Zealand. They left New Zealand to return to Antarctica. After spending 138 days at sea, and a collision between the
Erebus and
Terror, they sailed to the
Falkland Islands, to
Tierra del Fuego, back to the Falklands and onward to their third sortie into the Antarctic. They made a landing at
Cockburn Island and after leaving the Antarctic, stopped at the Cape, St Helena and
Ascension Island. The ships arrived back in England on
September 4,
1843; the voyage had been a success for Ross as it was the first to confirm the existence of the southern continent and chart much of its coastline.
Interim
Failing to gain an academic position at the
University of Edinburgh, Hooker declined a chair at Glasgow University. Instead, he took a position as botanist to the
Geological Survey of Great Britain in 1846. He began work on
palaeobotany, searching for fossil plants in the coal-beds of
Wales. He became engaged to Frances Henslow, daughter of
Charles Darwin's botany tutor
John Stevens Henslow, but he was keen to continue to travel and gain more experience in the field. He wanted to travel to
India and the
Himalayas. In 1847 his father nominated him to travel to
India and collect plants for
Kew.
When Hooker returned to England, his father had been appointed director of the
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and so was now a prominent man of science. William Hooker, through his connections, secured an Admiralty grant of £1000 to defray the cost of plates for his son's
Botany of the Antarctic Voyages, and an annual stipend of £200 for Joseph while he worked on the flora. Hooker's flora was also to include that collected on the voyages of Cook and Menzies held by the British Museum and collections made on the
Beagle. The floras were illustrated by
Walter Hood Fitch (trained in botanical illustration by William Hooker), who would go on to become the most prolific Victorian
botanical artist.
Hooker's collections from the voyage were described eventually in one of two volumes published as the
Flora Antarctica (1844–47). In the
Flora he wrote about
islands and their role in
plant geography: the work made Hooker's reputation as a systemist and plant geographer. His works on the voyage were completed with
Flora Novae-Zelandiae (1851–53) and
Flora Tasmaniae (1853–59).
Himalayan expedition
On November 11, 1847 Hooker left England for his 3 year long
Himalayan expedition; he'd be the first European to collect plants in the Himalaya. He received free passage on
HMS Sidon, to the
Nile and then travelled overland to
Suez where he boarded a ship to India. He arrived in
Calcutta on January 12, 1848, then travelled by elephant to
Mirzapur, up the Ganges by boat to
Siliguri and overland by pony to
Darjeeling, arriving on
April 16,
1848.
Hooker's expedition was based in
Darjeeling where he stayed with naturalist
Brian Houghton Hodgson. Through Hodgson he met British East India Company representative
Archibald Campbell who negotiated Hooker's admission to
Sikkim, which was finally approved in 1849. He was briefly taken prisoner by the Raja of Sikkim. Meanwhile, Hooker wrote to Darwin relaying to him the habits of animals in India, and collected plants in
Bengal. He explored with local resident Charles Barnes, the travelled along the
Great Runjeet river to its junction with the
Tista River and
Tonglu mountain in the
Singalila range on the border with
Nepal.
Hooker and a sizable party of local assistants departed for eastern Nepal on October 27, 1848. They travelled to
Zongri, west over the spurs of
Kangchenjunga, and north west along Nepal's passes into
Tibet. In April 1849 he planned a longer expedition into Sikkim. Leaving on May 3rd, he travelled north west up the
Lachen Valley to the
Kongra Lama Pass and then to the
Lachoong Pass. Campbell and Hooker were imprisoned by the Dewan of
Sikkim when they were travelling towards the
Chola Pass in
Tibet. A British team was sent to negotiate with the king of Sikkim. However, they were released without any bloodshed and Hooker returned to Darjeeling where he spent January and February of 1850 writing his journals, replacing specimens lost during his detention and planning a journey for his last year in India.
Reluctant to return to Sikkim, and unenthusiastic about travelling in
Bhutan, he chose to make his last Himalayan expedition to
Sylhet and the
Khasi Hills in
Assam. He was accompanied by
Thomas Thompson, a fellow student from Glasgow University. They left Darjeeling on May 1 1850, then sailed to the
Bay of Bengal and travelled overland by elephant to the Khasi Hills and established a headquarters for their studies in Churra where they stayed until December 9, when they began their trip back to England.
Hooker's survey of hitherto unexplored regions, the
Himalayan Journals, dedicated to
Charles Darwin, was published by the
Calcutta Trigonometrical Survey Office and (The Minerva Library of Famous Books) Ward, Lock, Bowden & Co.,
1891.
Friendship with Charles Darwin
While on the
Erebus, Hooker had read proofs of
Charles Darwin's
Voyage of the Beagle provided by
Charles Lyell and had been very impressed by Darwin's skill as a naturalist. Following his return to England he was approached by Darwin who asked Hooker if he'd classify the plants that he'd collected in the
Galápagos. Hooker agreed and the pair began a life-long friendship. In a letter dated 1844 Darwin shared with Hooker his early ideas on the
transmutation of species and
natural selection. He was probably the first person to hear of the theory. Their correspondence continued throughout the
development of Darwin's theory and later Darwin wrote that Hooker was "the one living soul from whom I've constantly received sympathy".
Richard Freeman, in
Charles Darwin--a Companion, wrote: "Hooker was Charles Darwin's greatest friend and confidant". Certainly they'd extensive correspondence, but they also met face-to-face (Hooker visiting Darwin). Hooker and Lyell were the two people Darwin consulted (by letter) when Wallace's famous letter arrived at Down House, enclosing his paper on natural selection. Hooker was instrumental in creating the device whereby the Wallace paper was accompanied by Darwin's notes and his letter to
Asa Gray (showing his prior realization of natural selection) in a presentation to the
Linnean Society. Hooker was the one who formally presented this material to the Linnean Society meeting in 1858. In 1859 the author of
The Origin of Species recorded his indebtedness to Hooker's wide knowledge and balanced judgment.
In 1859, Hooker published the
Introductory Essay to the Flora Tasmaniae, the final part of the Botany of the Antarctic Voyage. It was in this essay (which appeared just one month after the publication of Charles Darwin's "On the Origin of Species"), that Hooker announced his support for the theory of evolution by natural selection, thus becoming the first recognised man of science to publicly back Darwin.
At the
historic debate on evolution held at the
Oxford University Museum on
30 June 1860, Bishop
Samuel Wilberforce,
Benjamin Brodie and
Robert FitzRoy spoke against Darwin's theory, and Hooker and
Thomas Henry Huxley defended it. According to many contemporary accounts, including Hooker's own, it was he and not Huxley who delivered the most effective reply to Wilberforce's arguments.
Hooker acted as president of the
British Association at its
Norwich meeting of 1868, when his address was remarkable for its championship of Darwinian theories. He was a close friend of
Thomas Henry Huxley, a member of the
X-Club, and the first of the three X-Clubbers (who dominated the
Royal Society in the 1870s and early 1880s) to become
President of the Royal Society.
Career
He started the series
Flora Indica in 1855, together with
Thomas Thompson. Their botanical observations and the publication of the
Rhododendrons of Sikkim-Himalaya (1849–51), formed the basis of elaborate works on the
rhododendrons of the
Sikkim Himalaya and on the flora of India. His works were illustrated with lithographs by
Walter Hood Fitch.
Among other journeys undertaken by Hooker were those to
Palestine (1860),
Morocco (1871), and the
United States (1877), all yielding valuable scientific information.
In the midst of all this travelling in foreign countries he quickly built up for himself a high scientific reputation at home. In 1855 he was appointed assistant-director of the
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and in 1865 he succeeded his father as full director, holding the post for twenty years. Under the directorship of father and son Hooker, the Royal Botanical gardens of Kew rose to world renown.
At the early age of thirty he was elected a fellow of the
Royal Society, and in 1873 he was chosen its president (till 1877). He received three of its medals: the
Royal Medal in 1854, the
Copley in 1887 and the
Darwin Medal in 1892.
His greatest botanical work was the
Flora of British India, published in seven volumes between 1872 and 1897. He was the author of numerous scientific papers and monographs, and his larger books included, in addition to those already mentioned, a standard
Students Flora of the British Isles and a monumental work, the
Genera plantarum (1860–83), based on the collections at Kew, in which he'd the assistance of
George Bentham. In 1904, at the age of 87, he published
A sketch of the Vegetation of the Indian Empire.
He continued the compilation of his father Sir
William Jackson Hooker's project,
Icones Plantarum (Illustrations of Plants), producing volumes eleven through nineteen.
On the publication of the last part of his
Flora of British India in 1897 he was promoted Knight Grand Commander of the
Star of India, the highest rank of the Order (he had been made a Knight Commander twenty years before). Ten years later, on attaining the age of ninety in 1907, he was awarded the
Order of Merit.
Joseph Hooker died in his sleep at midnight at home on
10 December 1911 after a short and apparently minor illness. The Dean and Chapter of
Westminster Abbey offered a grave near Darwin's in the
nave but also insisted that Hooker be
cremated before. His widow, Hyacinth, declined the proposal and eventually Hooker's body was buried, as he wished to be, alongside his father in the churchyard of St Anne’s on Kew Green, within short distance of
Kew Gardens.
Hooker Oak in
Chico, California is named after him.
Marriages and children
In 1851 he married Frances Harriet Henslow (1825–1874), daughter of
John Stevens Henslow. They had four sons and three daughters:
- William Henslow Hooker (1853–1942)
- Harriet Anne Hooker (1854–1945) married William Turner Thiselton-Dyer
- Charles Paget Hooker (1855–1933)
- Marie Elizabeth Hooker (1857–1863) died aged 6.
- Brian Harvey Hodgson Hooker (1860–1932)
- Reginald Hawthorn Hooker (1867–1944) statistician
- Grace Ellen Hooker (1868–1873) died aged 5.
After his first wife's death in 1874, in 1876 he married Hyacinth Jardine (1842–1921), daughter of
William Samuel Symonds and the widow of Sir
William Jardine. They had two sons:
Joseph Symonds Hooker (1877–1940)
Richard Symonds Hooker (1885–1950)Further Information
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