William Jackson Hooker (6 July 178512 August 1865) was an English botanist and botanical illustrator, who became the first director of Kew when in 1841 it was recommended to be placed under state ownership as a botanic garden. At Kew he founded the Herbarium and enlarged the gardens and arboretum. The standard author abbreviation Hook. is used to indicate this person as the author when citing a botanical name.
Hooker was born and educated in Norwich. An inheritance gave him the means to travel and to devote himself to the study of natural history, particularly botany. He published his account of an expedition to Iceland in 1809, even though his notes and specimens were destroyed during his voyage home. He married Maria, the eldest daughter of the Norfolk banker Dawson Turner, in 1815, afterwards living in Halesworth for 11 years, where he established a herbarium that became renowned by botanists at the time.
He held the post of Regius Professor of Botany at Glasgow University, where he worked with the botanist and lithographer Thomas Hopkirk and enjoyed the supportive friendship of Joseph Banks for his exploring, collecting and organising work. In 1841 he succeeded William Townsend Aiton as Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. He expanded the gardens at Kew, building new glasshouses, and establishing an arboretum and a museum of economic botany. Among his publications are The British Jungermanniae (1816), Flora Scotica (1821), and Species Filicum (184664).
He died in 1865. His son, Joseph Dalton Hooker, succeeded him as Director of Kew Gardens.
Family Hooker's father Joseph Hooker was related to the Baring family and worked for them in Exeter and Norwich as a wool-stapler, trading in worsted and bombazine. He was an amateur botanist who collected succulent plants, and was, according to his grandson Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker, "mainly a self-educated man and a fair German scholar". Joseph Hooker was related to the sixteenth-century historian John Hooker, and the theologian Richard Hooker.
His mother, Lydia Vincent, the daughter of James Vincent, belonged to a family of Norwich worsted weavers and artists. Her cousin, William Jackson, was William Jackson Hooker's godfather. Upon his death in 1789 William Jackson bequeathed his estate in Seasalter, Kent, to his godson, who inherited it when he was 21. Lydia Vincent's nephew, George Vincent, was one of the most talented of the Norwich School of painters.
Biography Early life and education William Jackson Hooker was born on 6 July 1785 at 7177 Magdalen Street, Norwich. A child named William Jacson Hooker was christened by his parents Joseph and Lydia Hooker at the nonconformist Tabernacle in Norwich on 9 November 1785.William Jacson Hooker in England and Wales Non-Conformist Record Indexes (RG4-8), 1588–1977, FamilySearch. He attended the Norwich Grammar School from about 1792 until his late teens, 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.
In 1805, Hooker discovered a moss (now known as Buxbaumia aphylla) when out walking on Rackheath, north of Norwich. He visited the Norwich botanist Sir James Edward Smith to consult his Linnean collections. Smith advised the young Hooker to contact the botanist Dawson Turner about his discovery.
Upon reaching the age of 21 he inherited an estate in Kent from his godfather. His independent means allowed him to travel and develop his interest in natural history.
As a young man Hooker was fascinated by the endemic 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. 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."
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. He lived there with Robert Paul, a gentleman farmer. 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.
Early friends and patrons
When a young man, Hooker gained the patronage and friendship of some of most important naturalists in eastern England, including 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.
In 1807, 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. 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.
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. 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.
By 1807, Hooker had begun work as a supervising manager at a brewery at Halesworth, in partnership with Dawson Turner and Samuel Paget. 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. The brewing venture proved to be unsuccessful, for he had no capacity for business. He remained as the manager there for ten years, living at 15 Quay Street, Halesworth.
Excursions abroad and early works
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 1809. 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.
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. 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.
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. 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. In 1812 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of London.
In 1813, encouraged by Sir Joseph Banks, he considered travelling to Java, but was dissuaded from the idea by friends and family.
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. 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. In 1815, he was made a corresponding member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
During this period he devoted much of his time to the study of mosses and liverworts. His important work on the latter group British Jungermanniae was published in 1816, followed by the short-lived series Musci Exotici (1818-1820), and his authoritative Muscologia Britannica (1818), which he wrote with Thomas Taylor. In addition to his correspondence with many leading botanists, he also supported and encouraged the muscological interests of others, including the young Henry Fox Talbot and his cousin Jane Talbot.Anne Secord, 'Talbot’s first lens: Botanical vision as an exact science'. In Brusius, Mirjam; Dean, Katrina; Ramalingam, Chitra (eds.). William Henry Fox Talbot: Beyond Photography, 2013. New Haven: Yale Center for British Art. pp 41–66. .
Career in Glasgow
In February 1820, Hooker was appointed as the regius professor of botany in the University of Glasgow, taking over from the Scottish physician and botanist Robert Graham, and inheriting a small botanic garden that was underfunded and lacking in plants. In May he was received by the University and read his inaugural thesis in Latin, written by his father-in-law, Dawson Turner. 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: his position within the medical faculty inspired him to study for a medical degree.
He soon became popular as a lecturer, his style being both clear and eloquent, and people such as local army officers came to attend them. 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.
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. Student numbers increased from 30 in 1820 to 130 ten years later. He earned £144 in his first year, which later increased, but still needed to supplement his income by tutoring two boys from wealthy families, who lived with the family.
His years at Glasgow were his most productive, when he was known as the most active botanist in the country. In 1821 he brought out the Flora Scotica, written to be used by his botany students. He was awarded a doctorate by Glasgow University in 1821. 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.