Curating Science in an Age of Empire Kew’s Museum of Economic Botany Caroline Cornish Royal Holloway, University of London Submitted for the degree of PhD 1 Declaration of Authorship I Caroline Cornish hereby declare that this thesis and the work presented in it is entirely my own. Where I have consulted the work of others, this is always clearly stated. Signed: ______________________ Date: ________________________ 2 Abstract This thesis considers the history and significance of the Museum of Economic Botany at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, focussing especially on the period from its opening in 1847 to the eve of the First World War. Looking specifically at the Museum’s collection of wood specimens and artefacts, it seeks to understand the nature of economic botany during this period, and to evaluate the contribution made to the field by the Kew Museum. Through examination of the Museum’s practices, networks, spaces, and objects, it sets out to address the question: how do museums produce scientific knowledge? Part One sets the context. Chapter One provides a brief historical account of nineteenth-century economic botany and the Museum. Chapter Two offers a critical overview of literatures on Kew and economic botany; on the role of place in the production, circulation, and reception of scientific knowledge; and on the role of the public museum in Victorian science and culture. It also outlines the conceptual framework of the thesis. Chapter Three presents an account of the methodology and sources. Part Two highlights museum practices. Chapters Four to Six are devoted respectively to the practices of ‘exhibition’ (the spatialities, rhetorics, and rationalities of display); ‘instruction’ (the educational uses of museum objects); and ‘supply’ (the circulation of objects). Part Three turns to specific objects and their biographies. Chapters Seven and Eight trace respectively the production, circulation and reception of a totem pole from British Columbia and a timber trophy from Tasmania, to demonstrate how objects acquire diverse meanings in diverse contexts, and how they are used to impart meaning to particular sites. In conclusion, Chapter Nine reflects on the cumulative findings of the thesis and on its potential outcomes, and it looks beyond the thesis to recommend areas for future research and practice. 3 Acknowledgements For a long time now I have thought that this was a history which needed to be written, and I am thrilled that the opportunity to do so has fallen to me. Two individuals in particular have created that opportunity and I wish to thank them here. Firstly Dr. Mark Nesbitt, curator of the Economic Botany Collection at Kew, whose enthusiasm is ever contagious and whose encouragement empowering; and secondly Professor Felix Driver of Royal Holloway, University of London, who has expressed unshakeable belief in the project from the start and opened up for me new ways of seeing the Museum of Economic Botany. I wish also to acknowledge the institutions of which they form part: Royal Holloway for awarding me a Thomas Holloway Research Scholarship and supporting my research in so many ways; and the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew for permitting extensive access to their collections, staff, and infrastructures of communication. Like the Kew Museum which forms its subject, this thesis is the product of a dispersed and mutable assemblage of people and things. Many others have also served to shape it, both by their questions and answers: archivists, librarians, academic scholars, interviewees, museum practitioners, and fellow researchers. And others still, like the Royal Historical Society, have provided additional funding which has enabled additional research. To all of these I extend my appreciation. Finally I wish to thank my family – John, Edward, and Florence Cornish – for their seemingly infinite support and tolerance. 4 Contents Abstract 3 Acknowledgements 4 Contents 5 List of figures 8 Part One: Contexts 14 Prologue: A ‘happy Hookerian idea’ 15 Chapter One Museums and Disciplines 19 1. Economic botany: the making of a discipline 21 2. The Museum of Economic Botany 38 3. Conclusion: from knowledges to disciplines 51 Chapter Two Science, Empire, and the Museum 58 1. Histories of Kew and economic botany 59 2. The museum as a site of knowledge production 70 3. Cultures of public science 81 4. Conclusion: placing the Museum of Economic Botany 85 Chapter Three Research Methods and Sources 88 Vignette: EBC 11121: Gardenia latifolia Ait. 88 1. Methodologies: practices, objects and networks 93 2. Sources 103 3. The changing shape of the Economic Botany Collection 111 4. Thesis framework and structure 120 5 Part Two: Practices 131 Chapter Four ‘Exhibition’ 132 Vignette: Case 67 132 1. Spatialities of display 136 2. Rhetorics of display 147 3. A ‘work of subtle brain and hand’: the indigo factory model 169 4. Conclusion: rationalities of display 178 Chapter Five ‘Instruction’ 203 Vignette: Practical geography and products of empire 203 1. Elementary science education and the object 207 2. Self-improvement 223 3. Museums and the popularisation of science 229 4. Conclusion: objects and the imparting of knowledge 234 Chapter Six ‘Supply’ 247 Vignette: The Schlagintweit woods 247 1. Terms of supply 252 2. ‘Cosmopolitan circuits of exhibition and display’ 259 3. The India Museum timbers 271 4. The rise of Indian forestry 276 5. Conclusion: trajectories and circuits 283 Part Three: Objects 297 Chapter Seven Mobility, Materiality, and Meaning: A Totem Pole from British Columbia 298 1. Totem poles and the ‘scramble for Northwest Coast artefacts’ 300 2. Totem poles in circulation 306 3. ‘A particularly fine specimen’: the Kew totem pole 314 4. Conclusion: constructing networks, creating meaning 327 5. Postscript 329 6 Chapter Eight Reconfiguring Objects, Refashioning Space: The Tasmanian Timber Trophy 346 1. ‘Steel and gold, and corn and wine’: colonial raw materials at the London International Exhibition 1862 351 2. The Tasmanian Timber Trophy 355 3. Kew and the ‘new botany’ 367 4. Conclusion: biographies of objects, biographies of places 373 Chapter Nine Conclusion 389 1. Research questions and answers 391 2. Methods, sources, choices, consequences 396 3. The Economic Botany Collection today 398 Appendix I The Museums of Economic Botany: timeline 406 Appendix II Directors and Museum Curators at Kew 1841-1986 407 Appendix III Interviews with Museum visitors and staff 410 Appendix IV Other museums of economic botany 411 Bibliography 412 7 List of figures Figure 1.1 Occurrence of the term ‘economic botany’ in printed sources 1760-1940 52 Figure 1.2 ‘Exhibition of the Royal Botanic Society, Regent’s Park’ 53 Figure 1.3 Museum of Practical Geology, Jermyn Street 53 Figure 1.4 Decimus Burton’s plan for the Museum of Economic Botany: before conversion* 54 Figure 1.5 Decimus Burton’s plan for the Museum of Economic Botany: after conversion* 54 Figure 1.6 The Museum of Economic Botany 1855* 55 Figure 1.7 Daniel Oliver, Keeper of Kew Herbarium and Library 1864-90* 56 Figure 1.8 ‘The Thames and Sion Park as seen from Kew Gardens’ 57 Figure 1.9 ‘The Pond and Museum’ 57 Figure 2.1 Museum No. 3 c.1900* 87 Figure 3.1-3.3 EBC 11121 Gardenia latifolia Ait.* 124 Figure 3.4 Woods in the Economic Botany Collection Store, Sir Joseph Banks Building* 125 Figure 3.5 Botany Gallery, Indian Museum, Kolkata 126 Figure 3.6 Museum of Non-Wood Forest Products, Forestry Research Institute, Dehradun 126 Figure 3.7 Analysis of accessions 1850-1991 127 Figure 3.8 Accessions by geographical source 128 Figure 3.9 Accessions by type of donor 129 Figure 3.10 Accessions by type of object 130 Figure 4.1 Case 67* 181 8 Figure 4.2 Plan of Museum No. 2 showing position of Case 67* 182 Figure 4.3 East end of Museum No. 2 c.1960* 182 Figure 4.4 Scheelea kewensis Hook. F.* 183 Figure 4.5 Museum No. 1* 184 Figure 4.6 Plan of Kew Gardens showing location of the Museums 185 Figure 4.7 Henry Flower’s ‘new museum idea’ 186 Figure 4.8 Typical Kew Museum label* 187 Figure 4.9 Advertisement in The Traveller’s Album 1862 188 Figure 4.10 Obignya sagotii Trail ex Thurn* 189 Figure 4.11 Diagrams suspended from the balcony of Museum 2* 190 Figure 4.12 Botrydium granulatum 190 Figure 4.13 Chara fragilis A. Brown; Lilium Martagon L. 191 Figure 4.14 Victoria and Australia Courts, 1862 Exhibition 191 Figure 4.15 ‘Aeta Palms, Mauritia flexuosa L., Maccesseema’* 192 Figure 4.16 Photomicrograph of magnified grains of starch from Canna indica* 192 Figure 4.17 Kew Museum ‘Map of the World’* 193 Figure 4.18 Berghaus’s isothermic map 1849 194 Figure 4.19 Johnston’s ‘Climatological Chart’ 1852 195 Figure 4.20 EBC 70344 Mintorn wax roses* 196 Figure 4.21 EBC 79793 Indigo factory model* 196 Figure 4.22 Indigo factory model in Museum No. 1* 197 Figure 4.23 Plan of the 1886 Colonial and Indian Exhibition 198 Figure 4.24 Indigo production in the French West Indies 1694 199 Figure 4.25 ‘Indigo Manufacture in India’ 200 9 Figure 4.26 Indigo manufacture photographs in Museum No. 1* 201 Figure 4.27 Indigo factory model – detail* 202 Figure 5.1 Empire Day Exhibition at Gloucester Road School, Camberwell, London 1914: Canada* 236 Figure 5.2 Empire Day Exhibition at Gloucester Road School, Camberwell, London 1914: West Indies* 236 Figure 5.3 Object lesson at Goodrich Road School, East Dulwich, London 1907 237 Figure 5.4 Object lesson plan for sugar 238 Figure 5.5 Sugar cane entry in Kew Museums’ Official Guide* 240 Figure 5.6 EBC 40591 Sample of crude sugar from Livingstone’s expedition to East Africa* 241 Figure 5.7 'Manufacture of Sugar at Katipo', Thomas Baines 1859* 241 Figure 5.8 School museum cabinets, Goodrich Road School 1907 242 Figure 5.9 Applications to Kew Museum for school museum specimens 1877-1914 by type of school 243 Figure 5.10 Applications to Kew Museum for school museum specimens 1877-1914 243 Figure 5.11 Geographical profile of schools receiving specimens from Kew Museum 1877-1914 244 Figure 5.12 Kew apprentice gardeners attend a lecture on economic botany in Museum No.