'The Want of a Proper Gardiner': Late Georgian Scottish Botanic
BJHS 52(4): 543–567, December 2019. © British Society for the History of Science 2019. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. doi:10.1017/S0007087419000451 First published online 04 October 2019 ‘The want of a proper Gardiner’: late Georgian Scottish botanic gardeners as intermediaries of medical and scientific knowledge CLARE HICKMAN* Abstract. Often overlooked by historians, specialist gardeners with an expert understanding of both native and exotic plant material were central to the teaching and research activities of univer- sity botanic gardens. In this article various interrelationships in the late Georgian period will be examined: between the gardener, the garden, the botanic collection, the medical school and ways of knowing. Foregrounding gardeners’ narratives will shed light on the ways in which botanic material was gathered and utilized for teaching and research purposes, particularly for medical students, as well as highlighting the importance of the garden as a repository of botanic material for the classroom. In this way, the blurred lines between art and science, skill and scholarly activity, and shared pedagogic practices between botany and anatomy will be revealed. Introduction In 1754 William Cullen, at that time professor of medicine, and Robert Hamilton, Regius Professor of Botany and Anatomy, complained about the lack of a decent botanic garden at the University of Glasgow. Their proposal, which concerned the ‘great garden’, was to reconfigure it, making it ‘more useful to the study of Botany’.1 At the same time, they stressed the need for ‘getting a good gardiner’.2 The importance of a ‘good’ gardener was outlined in more detail in their memorial (a petition), directed to the honourable rector and other members of the University of Glasgow.
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