Field Notes
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Who was Allan Octavian Hume? A senior civil servant in India from 1857 to 1894 whose keen interests in social justice and natural history led him to found the South London Botanical Institute in Norwood in 1910.
Was he a famous botanist? Not really, he was renowned as an ornithologist, donating a collection of 82,000 birds and eggs to the NHM in 1885. However, a series of failed attempts at writing a definitive guide to Indian birds led him to abandon ornithology in favour of botany. By 1910 he had become an expert on the British Flora and amassed over 40,000 collections.
Why the South London Botanical Institute? It enabled him to combine his strong sense of social justice and botany through the idea of using botany as a means of converting "the boy in the gutter" to a love of British plants.
Sorry? He believed that if young people from poorer backgrounds had something to interest themselves in, such as plants, then they would not be as likely to turn to crime. Norwood at this time was surrounded by countryside and so local people would have had ready access to wild plants.
Did this concept catch on? Sadly not. However, it did spark the development of an active botanical community in South London, with regular visits made to the Botany Department of the NHM.
Did Allan Hume found any other Institutions? Yes, in 1883 he co-founded the Indian National Congress Party which led India to Independence in 1947, although sadly he did not live to see India's Independence. His contribution has been commemorated in a series of Indian postage stamps.
What of the South London Botanical Institute now? It now has an impressive herbarium (100,000 specimens), an interesting collection of plants in the garden (with a number of Cretan species) and a dedicated staff of volunteers, and they are keen to recruit new members (write to 323 Norwood Road, London SE24 9AQ).
It is almost as though events have conspired to bury Ralph Johnson's reputation as a naturalist. A botanical commonplace book and important botanical records have only recently been identified as his. Now, a volume of his herbarium, again incorrectly attributed, has been identified in the Sloane Herbarium at The NHM. Efforts are now being made to revitalise Johnson's reputation. John Ray, the celebrated seventeenth century English naturalist, described Johnson as a "great friend" and held him in very high esteem as a naturalist. Five of Johnson's letters to Ray survive in the Botany Department's library at The NHM.
Ralph Johnson was born in 1629 in rural North Yorkshire near the River Tees. He attended Sedburgh School and went on to Cambridge University. He was Master at Darlington Grammar School until 1656 when he was presented to the Vicarage of Brignall, only two and a half miles from his birth place. Johnson remained the incumbent here until his death in 1695. He also ran a boarding school at Brignall and published at least two scholars' guides.
Johnson had an ideal botanical mentor in Walter Stonehouse, Rector of Darfield in South Yorkshire. Stonehouse had helped Thomas Johnson (no relation) to produce the first British flora, Mercurius botanicus (1634 and 1641). He accompanied Thomas Johnson on his expedition to North Wales in 1639 and some of the gatherings in Ralph Johnson's herbarium may well have originated from this expedition. He also knew both John Tradescant the elder and younger, and many of the plants in Ralph's herbarium came from the Tradescants' famous garden in South Lambeth, London and the Oxford Physic Garden which Tradescant the elder originally stocked. The gardens contained both native British plants and plants sent from abroad.
In July 1671, John Ray and Thomas Willisel stayed with Johnson at his home in Brignall. Willisel was the first professional collector of plants, animals and minerals for The Royal Society and had met Johnson whilst collecting for Christopher Merrett's Pinax. Indeed, Johnson's herbarium contains a number of gatherings made by Willisel. Ray particularly wanted to see Potentilla fruticosa L., shrubby cinquefoil, which Johnson had discovered locally, new to science.
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No doubt he also wanted to see Johnson's collection of stuffed, cased birds and fishes. This was Ray's last "simpling voyage". On this visit Ray taught Johnson the botanical terminology which he himself was employing. Johnson suggested to Ray that the second edition of his English Catalogue, which appeared in 1677, should be in natural rather than alphabetical order, "to the benefit of students of the subject". Although Ray greatly approved of this advice, he felt unable to accede because he knew a very great deal of work still needed to be done before such progress could be made. Unusually for this time, Johnson's herbarium is arranged more or less "generically" rather than alphabetically. That he was a convinced natural philosopher is further evidenced by his natural scheme of bird classification. Ray used this in his Ornithology which first appeared in 1676 and is recognised as the start of scientific ornithology. Johnson is the botanical pioneer of Upper Teesdale, one of our most important botanical areas. His discoveries faded because shortly after his death a culture unsympathetic to nature became pre-eminent in England. A memorial plaque has recently been placed on his grave in his graveyard which lies in a delightful setting by the River Greta, painted by Turner and eulogised by Sir Walter Scott. |
Potentilla fruticosa L., the figure in John Ray's Catalogus Plantarum Angliae, second edition (1677). Only P. fruticosa and a fungus were figured in this work. |
Contact: Frank Horsman, 7, Fox Wood Walk, Leeds LS8 3BP.