Joseph Hooker's Australasian Correspondence with William Colenso and Ronald Gunn1
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"From having no Herbarium." Local Knowledge versus Metropolitan Expertise: Joseph Hooker's Australasian Correspondence with William Colenso and Ronald Gunn1 Jim Endersby2 Abstract: Between 1844 and 1860, Joseph Dalton Hooker published a series of major floras of the southern oceans, including the first floras of Tasmania and New Zealand. These books were essential to establishing his scientific reputa tion. However, despite having visited the countries he described, Hooker relied on a large network of unpaid, colonial collectors to supply him with specimens. A study of his relationship with two of these collectors-Ronald Campbell Gunn and William Colenso-reveals warm friendships but also complex nego tiations over individual authority, plant naming, and the status of local knowl edge. The herbarium played a crucial role in mediating these negotiations. Although Bruno Latour's theory of cycles of accumulation proved useful for analyzing the herbarium's role, in this article some ways in which his ideas might be refined and modified are suggested. IN 1854, THE BRITISH botanist Joseph knowledge and Colenso's names never ap Dalton Hooker (Figure 1) criticized William peared in Hooker's Flora Novae-Zelandiae Colenso (Figure 2), his chief correspondent (1855). in New Zealand, for having attempted to At first glance, this incident encapsulates name some supposedly new species of an essential aspect of the colonial scientific ferns: "From having no Herbarium," wrote relationship: the metropolitan expert using Hooker, "you have described as new, some of his position-both physical and social-to the best known Ferns in the world" (quoted overrule the distant colonial (Brockway 1979, by Colenso to J. D. Hooker, 24 August 1854: MacLeod 1987, MacLeod and Rehbock 1988, KDC 174). Hooker evidently thought that his Miller 1996, McCracken 1997). Although herbarium gave him the prerogative to name Hooker was dependent upon people like Co plants that his colonial correspondent lacked. lenso for the specimens he needed to compile Colenso disagreed, arguing that "I am well the books that made his name and reputation, aware that I know very little indeed (save he was not interested in their ideas. At the from books) of the Botany of any Country heart of his ability to keep Colenso in a sub except N.z., still, I fancy, I know the specific ordinate role was the herbarium; I want to differences of many N.Z. plants" (Colenso to discuss the herbarium's importance using J. D. Hooker, 24 August 1854: CP4). For the Bruno Latour's concept that exchanges such colonial naturalist, firsthand knowledge ofhis as those between Hooker and Colenso can locality's living plants gave him unique in best be understood by looking at the "cycle of sights. However, Hooker ignored this local accumulation" within which they participated (Latour 1987:219-220). Hooker made his herbarium into what Latour called a "center 1 Manuscript accepted 1 February 2001. of calculation"-a place that brought him 2 Department of the History and Philosophy of specimens, publications, and ultimately the Science, University of Cambridge, Free School Lane, directorship of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Cambridge, CB2 3RH, Britain (E-mail: [email protected]). Kew. In this article I shall look at the cycle ofac Pacific Science (2001), vol. 55, no. 4:343-358 cumulation from the perspective ofthe periph © 2001 by University of Hawai'i Press ery-by comparing and contrasting Colenso's All rights reserved motivations with those of Ronald Campbell 343 344 PACIFIC SCIENCE· October 2001 FIGURE 1. Joseph Dalton Hooker. Copyright Alexander FIGURE 3. Ronald Campbell Gunn. Copyright Royal Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. Botanic Gardens, Kew. Gunn (Figure 3), another of Hooker's Aus tralasian correspondents. Although this approach illustrates the usefulness of Latour's model, it also highlights ways in which it might be modified. HOW TO BECOME "SUCH A PERSON AS MR. DARWIN" Hooker corresponded with Gunn for 20 years, from 1840 to about 1860, and with Colenso from 1841 until Colenso's death in 1899. Hooker met both men during his voyage to Antarctica as assistant surgeon aboard HMS Erebus (1839-1843), com manded by James Clark Ross, which, with its sister ship, the Terror, was mapping ter restrial magnetism (Cawood 1979). However, the ships could not withstand the Antarctic winters, so took shelter in various places, in cluding New Zealand and Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania), and also visited the nu FIGURE 2. The Reverend William Colenso. Copyright merous tiny islands around Antarctica. These Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. sojourns were Hooker's chance to collect Local Knowledge versus Metropolitan Expertise . Endersby 345 plants in relatively unexplored regions; as he complained to Gunn that the publication it wrote to his father, "No future Botanist will self earned nothing. Indeed, the lavish illus probably ever visit the countries whither I am trated volumes cost Hooker money: "the fact going, and that is a great attraction" (J. D. is I have to purchase all the coloring of the Hooker to W. J. Hooker, 3 February 1840: work: & have to give colored copies to the Huxley 1918: 163). nobs who do not care a straw for me or my Unexplored lands and unknown plants book-Reeves [his publisher] gives me noth would, Hooker hoped, make his name. Before ing on the work, nor soon will" (J. D. setting sail, Ross told Hooker that he wanted Hooker to Gunn, October 1844: GC8). De "such a person as Mr. Darwin" as the ex spite having a subsidy from the Admiralty, it pedition's naturalist, but because Hooker had was clear to Hooker that it was only by not yet proved himself of Darwin's caliber, building his reputation-his "symbolic capi Ross appointed him to the inferior position of tal"-that the book might payoff (Bourdieu botanist. On receiving this unwelcome news, 1977,1984, Moore 1997). Hooker wrote a disgruntled letter to his By the time he returned to England, father, William Hooker, complaining "what Hooker was contemplating writing floras not was Mr. D. before he went out? he, I daresay, merely of the Antarctic, but also of much of knew his subject better than I now do, but did the southern oceans, a project that would the world know him? the voyage with Fitz allow him to tackle the problem of plant dis Roy was the making of him (as I hoped this tribution that fascinated him and many of his exped. would me)" (J. D. Hooker to W. J. contemporaries (Browne 1983, Rehbock Hooker, 27 April 1839: Huxley 1918:41). 1983). As Hooker traveled and collected, he Hooker knew that Darwin had been un noted that lands close to each other did not known when the Beagle set sail under Captain always have similar plants: the gum trees FitzRoy and hoped his own career might fol (Eucalyptus) and wattles (Acacia) that domi low the same pattern-that he, too, could nated the Australian landscape were never establish a scientific reputation by collecting found in New Zealand; and the plants of during the voyage and publishing descrip the Kerguelen's Land were clearly related to tions of his collections after he returned. those of distant Tierra del Fuego, not to In a period with few established scientific those of Lord Auckland's islands-despite career paths, traveling was an important way their being much closer (Hooker 1847:209 for someone like Hooker to become a man of 210, Hooker 1859:lxxxix). Like some of his science. He had to invent a career for himself, contemporaries, Hooker believed that each and long, uncomfortable years on board ship species had been created-by some unknown were the first step in this process. Although means-in one place only, and that plants Hooker's father had excellent contacts in had migrated from their point oforigin to the the natural history world, he did not (unlike various places they currently occupied. How Darwin's father) have a fortune to bequeath ever, this theory was hard to reconcile with his son, so when Joseph Hooker returned to members of the same group being found England, he needed a way to earn a living thousands of miles apart-such as on isolated while pursuing his passion for botany. As he islands-with no obvious, natural means by noted in a letter to his father, "I am not which they could have been transported. independent, and must not be too proud; if I Hooker hoped that close study of the south cannot be a naturalist with a fortune, I must ern island floras might shed light on these not be too vain to take honourable compen puzzles and perhaps on the mechanism by sation for my trouble" (J. D. Hooker to W. J. which new species were created. Hooker, 18 May 1843: Huxley 1918:166). Besides needing prestigious, reputation For Hooker, publishing the Botany of the building publications, Hooker had another Antarctic Voyage was a way of earning motive for investigating plant distribution "honourable compensation" for his efforts to make botany into a more "philosophical" (Hooker 1847, 1855, 1859). However, he study (Rehbock 1983). In the early decades of 346 PACIFIC SCIENCE· October 2001 the nineteenth century, British botany was was Brown who stimulated Joseph Hooker's largely taxonomic and although the question interest in the topic. Brown was a friend of of precisely which studies qualified as true Joseph's father and an inspiration to Joseph, sciences was still hotly debated, one wide whose letters home made his influence clear. spread view was that the true sciences were Thus he wrote to his father while on the concerned with mathematics, experimenta Erebus: "If ever on my return I am enabled to tion, accuracy, precision, and-most of all follow up botany ashore, I shall live the life of with discovering causal laws.