Banks, Joseph (1743 - 1820)

Summary

Sir Joseph Banks travelled with James Cook on the Endeavour in 1768-1771. Afterwards he remained the major sponsor of science in the Australian region for some thirty years.

Details

Born Westminster, England, 13 February 1743. Died Isleworth, 19 June 1820. Baronet 1781, KCB 1795, member of the Privy Council 1797. Educated University of Oxford (did not graduate). Studied and collected rocks, plants and animals in Newfoundland and Labrador on H.M.S. "Niger" 1766; travelled with James Cook on the Endeavour 1768-71; led expedition to the Isle of Wight, the western islands of Scotland and Iceland 1772; paid for numerous expeditions which provided him with collections of animals and plants; sheepbreeding and farming on his Lincolnshire estate. Fellow, Royal Society 1766; president 1778-1820. Commemorated by Bankstown, a monument at Kurnell, the plant genus "Banksia" and several Australian plant species.

Chronology

1766

Career position - Fellow, The Royal Society, London (FRS)

1766

Career position - Naturalist on the HMS Niger voyage to Newfoundland and Labrador

1768 - 1771

Career position - Naturalist on the Endeavour voyages with James Cook

1772

Career position - Led an expedition to the Isle of Wight, the western islands of Scotland and Iceland

1778 - 1820

Career position - President, The Royal Society, London

1781

Award - Baronet

1788

Taxonomy event - Description of Metrosideros gummifera Sol. ex Gaertn. (1788) (= Eucalyptus gummifera (Sol. ex Gaertn.) Hochr. (1925)). Banks and Solander collected the type

1795

Award - Knight Commander of the Order of Bath (KCB)

1797

Career position - Member of the Privy Council in England

1904

Taxonomy event - Eucalyptus banskii Maiden was named in his honour

Related entries

Archival resources

Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales

• Joseph Banks - Records, 1795, ML DOC 2502; Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales. Details
• Joseph Banks - Records, 1773, MS 101; Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales. Details
• Joseph Banks - Records, 1771 - 1894, FM 4/1722; Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales. Details
• Joseph Banks - Records, 1804 - 1817, FM 3/637; Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales. Details
• Joseph Banks - Records, 1773, MS Q75/9; Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales. Details
• Joseph Banks - Records, 1768 - 1771, FM 4/57-59; Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales. Details
• Joseph Banks - Records, 1773 - 1815, FM 4/2284; Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales. Details
• Joseph Banks - Records, 1763 - 1820, FM 4/4363-8; Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales. Details
• Joseph Banks - Records, 1757 - 1819, ML DOC 2079; Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales. Details
• Joseph Banks - Records, 1774 - 1787, ML MSS 1530; Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales. Details
• Joseph Banks - Records, 1816, ML DOC 1881; Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales. Details
• Joseph Banks - Records, 1774 - 1814, MS Q158-161; Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales. Details
• Joseph Banks - Records, 1785 - 1813, Spencer No. 245; Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales. Details
• Joseph Banks - Records, 1819, MS Q78/8-9; Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales. Details
• Joseph Banks - Records, 1768 - 1771, ML DOC 2728; Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales. Details
• Joseph Banks - Records, 1766 - 1820, ML MSS 743; Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales. Details
• Joseph Banks - Records, 1797, MS Q79/12; Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales. Details
• Joseph Banks - Records, 1768 - 1771, MS Q77/31-32; Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales. Details
• Joseph Banks - Records, 1802, ML DOC 1450; Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales. Details
• Linnean Society of London - Records, 1792 - 1870, FM 4/2699; Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales. Details
• New South Wales Colonial Secretary's Office - Records, 1799 - c. 1930, ML MSS 681; Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales. Details

National Library of Australia Manuscript Collection

• Joseph Banks - Records, 1745 - 1820, MS 9; National Library of Australia Manuscript Collection. Details
• Joseph Banks - Records, 1745 - 1814, MS 989; National Library of Australia Manuscript Collection. Details

Powerhouse Museum

• Joseph Banks - Records, 1766 - 1820, ML MSS 2144; Powerhouse Museum. Details

Royal Geographical Society of South Australia Inc.

• Joseph Banks - Records, 1766; Royal Geographical Society of South Australia Inc. Details

State Library of Victoria, Australian Manuscripts Collection

• Collections held by the Derbyshire Record Office relation to Australia and New Zealand, M947; State Library of Victoria, Australian Manuscripts Collection. Details
• Joseph Banks - Records, 1773 - 1810, M469; State Library of Victoria, Australian Manuscripts Collection. Details
• Joseph Banks - Records, M2662; State Library of Victoria, Australian Manuscripts Collection. Details
• Joseph Banks - Records, M1192; State Library of Victoria, Australian Manuscripts Collection. Details
• Joseph Banks - Records, 1822, M604; State Library of Victoria, Australian Manuscripts Collection. Details
• Linnean Society of London - Records, 1790 - 1870, M596-597; State Library of Victoria, Australian Manuscripts Collection. Details
• Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew - Records, M730-788; State Library of Victoria, Australian Manuscripts Collection. Details

Published resources

Encyclopedia of Australian Science and Innovation Exhibitions

• McCarthy, Gavan; Smith, Ailie; Moje, Christine; Rigby, Rebecca, The Study of Australian Eucalypts, eScholarship Research Centre, 2013, http://www.eoas.info/eucalypts/index.html. Details

Books

• Banks, Joseph, The Journal of Joseph Banks in the Endeavour (Adelaide: Rigby, 1980). Details
• Beaglehole, J. C., The Endeavour journal of Joseph Banks : 1768 - 1771, 2 vols (Sydney: Trustees of the Public Library of New South Wales in association with Angus and Robertson, 1963). Details
• Beasley, A. W., Fellowship of Three: the Lives and Association of John Hunter (1728-1793), The Surgeon; James Cook (1728-1820), The Navigator; and Joseph Banks (1743-1820), The Naturalist (Kenthurst: Kangaroo Press, 1993). Details
• Burnet, Ian, Where Australia collides with Asia: the epic voyages of Joseph Banks, Charles Darwin, Alfred Wallace, and the origin of "On the origin of species by natural selection" (Sydney: Rosenberg Publications, 2017), 206 pp. Details
• Carter, H. B., Sir Joseph Banks (1743-1820) (London: British Museum (Natural History), 1988), 673 pp. Details
• Carter, Harold Burnell, His Majesty's Spanish Flock, Sir Joseph Banks and the Merinos of George III of England (London: Angus & Robertson, 1964), 520 pp. Details
• Chambers, Neil, The Indian and Pacific Correspondence of Sir Joseph Banks, 1768-1820, volume 1: Letters 1768-1782 (London : Pickering and Chatto, 2008), 464 pp. Details
• Chambers, Neil, The Indian and Pacific Correspondence of Sir Joseph Banks, 1768-1820, volume 2: letters 1783-1789 (London : Pickering and Chatto, 2009), 480 pp. Details
• Chambers, Neil, Endeavouring Banks: exploring collections from the Endeavour voyage, 1768-1771 (Sydney, N.S.W.: NewSouth Publishing, 2016), 303 pp. Details
• Duyker, Edward, Nature's Argonaut: Daniel Solander, 1733-1782, Naturalist and Voyager with Cook and Banks (Melbourne: Miegunyah Press, 1998), 436 pp. Details
• Fara, Patricia, Sex, Botany & Empire: the Story of Carl Linnaeus and Joseph Banks (Cambridge: Icon books, 2003), 168 pp. Details
• Frost, Alan, Sir Joseph Banks and the Transfer of Plants to and from the South Pacific, 1786-1798 (Melbourne: Gaston Renard, 1993). Details
• Gascoigne, John, Joseph Banks and the English Enlightenment: Useful Knowledge and Polite Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 336 pp. Details
• Gooding, M.; Mabberley, D. J.; and Studholme, J., Joseph Bank's Florilegium (London: Thames and Hudson, 2017), 320 pp. Details
• Harrison, Christina, The botanical adventures of Joseph Banks (Kew: Kew Publishing, 2020), 128 pp. Details
• Lysaght, A. M., The journal of Joseph Banks in the Endeavour; with a commentary by A.M. Lysaght, 2 vols (Guildford, Surrey: Adelaide: Genesis Publications: Rigby, 1980). Details
• Lyte, Charles, Sir Joseph Banks: 18th Century Explorer, Botanist and Entrepreneur (Sydney: Reed, 1980). Details
• Maiden, J. H., Sir Joseph Banks: the "father of Australia" (Sydney: Government Printer, 1909), 244 pp. Details
• Miller, David and Reill, Peter, Visions of Empire: Voyages, Botany, and Representations of Nature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 389 pp. Details
• Musgrave, T., The multifarious Mr. Banks: from Botany Bay to Kew, the natural historian who shaped the world (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2020), 386 pp. Details
• O'Brian, Patrick, Joseph Banks: a Life (London: Collins Harvill, 1987), 320 pp. Details
• Pybus, Cassandra, A very secret trade: the dark story of gentlemen collectors in Tasmania (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2024), 318 pp. https://www.allenandunwin.com/browse/book/Cassandra-Pybus-Very-Secret-Trade-9781761066344. Pages 71-101, 140. Details
• Wrigley, J.; and Fagg, M., Eucalypts: a Celebration (Crows Nest Australia: Allen & Unwin, 2010), 344 pp. Details

Book Sections

• Gascoigne, John, 'The Scientis as Patron and Patristic Symbol: the Changing Reputation of Sir Joseph Banks' in Telling Lives in Science: Essays on Scientific Biography, Michael Shortland and Richard Yeo, eds (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 243-265. Details
• Gascoigne, John, 'Sir Joseph Banks, 1743-1820' in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004). Details
• Gilbert, L. A., 'Banks, Sir Joseph (1743-1820)' in Australian dictionary of biography, volume 1: 1788 - 1850 A-H, Douglas Pike, ed. (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1966), pp. 52-53. http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A010051b.htm. Details

Conference Papers

• Dunphy, Jocelyn, 'Science, Authority and Enlightenment: Sir Joseph Banks' Role in the Development of Australian Society', in Australian and New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science, Congress (Canberra: 1984).. Details

Edited Books

• Brunton, Paul ed., The Endeavour Journal of Joseph Banks: the Australian Journey (Sydney: Angus & Robertson in Association with the State Library of New South Wales, 1998). Details
• Carter, Harold Burnell ed., The Sheep and Wool Correspondence of Sir Joseph Banks (Sydney: Library Council of New South Wales, 1979), 641 pp. Details
• Chambers, Neil ed., Scientific Correspondence of Sir Joseph Banks, 1765-1820, vol. 6 (London: Pickerng and Chatto, 2007). Details
• Chambers, Neil ed., The Indian and Pacific Correspondence of Sir Joseph Banks, 1786-1820: volume 3, letters 1792-1798 (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2010), 528 pp. Details
• Chambers, Neil ed., The Indian and Pacific Correspondence of Sir Joseph Banks, 1786-1820: volume 5, letters 1798-1801 (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011), 672 pp. Details
• Chambers, Neil ed., The Indian and Pacific Correspondence of Sir Joseph Banks, 1786-1820: volume 4, letters 1792-1798 (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011), 643 pp. Details
• Chambers, Neil ed., The Indian and Pacific Correspondence of Sir Joseph Banks, 1786-1820: volume 7, Letters 1805-1810 (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2013), 608 pp. Details
• Chambers, Neil ed., The Indian and Pacific Correspondence of Sir Joseph Banks, 1786-1820: volume 6, Letters 1801-1805 London Pickering & Chatto 2013 (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2013), 560 pp. Details
• Chambers, Neil ed., The Indian and Pacific Correspondence of Sir Joseph Banks, 1786-1820: volume 8, Letters 1810-1821 (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2014), 643 pp. Details
• Diment, Judith A.; Humphries, Christopher J.; Newington, Linda and Shaughnessy, Elaine eds, British Museum (Natural History), Catalogue of the Natural History Drawings Commissioned by Joseph Banks on the Endeavour Voyage 1768-1771, held in the British Museum (Natural History). Part 1, Botany, Australia (London: The Museum, 1984), 183 pp, https://doi.org/10.5962/p.310430. Details

Journal Articles

• Agnarsdóttir, Anna, 'The young Joseph Banks: naturalist explorer and scientist, 1766 - 1772', Journal of maritime research, 21 (1/2) (2019), 23-44. https://doi.org/10.1080/21533369.2020.1746090. Details
• Andrews, John Robert Haydon, 'The East Coast of the North Island: Zoological Collections of the Endeavour Voyage', Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand, 42 (2) (2012), 139-44. Details
• Benson, Doug and Eldershaw, Georgina, 'Backdrop to Encounter: the 1770 Landscape of Botany Bay, the Plants collected by Banks and Solander and the Rehabilitation of Natural Vegetation at Kurnell', Cunninghamia, 10 (2007), 113-137. Details
• Branagan, D. F., 'History of Science in Australia. Pt. 5. Sir Joseph and the botanists', Scan, 1 (5) (1968), 17-22. Details
• Cilento, Raphael, 'Sir Joseph Banks F.R.S. and the naming of the kangaroo', Notes and Records of the Royal Society, 26 (1971), 157-61. Details
• Evans, Sue, 'Joseph Banks and the continuing influence of European colonisation on Australian herbal practice.', Australian Journal of Medical Herbalism, 21 (3) (2009), 63-65. Details
• Francis, J., 'Sir Joseph Banks, Architect of Science and Empire', Proceedings of the Royal Society of Queensland, 83 (1) (1972), 1-19. Details
• Groves, E. W., 'Notes on the botanical specimens collected by Banks and Solander on Cook's first voyage, together with an itinerary of landing localities', Journal of the Society for the Bibliography of Natural History, 4 (1) (1962), 57-62. Details
• Igler, David, 'The questions they asked: Joseph Banks and naturalists in the Pacific Ocean', Journal for maritime research, 21 (1/2) (2019), 62-75. https://doi.org/10.1080/21533369.2019.1705574. Details
• Johnston, Anne, 'Exhibiting the Enlightenment: Joseph Banks's Florilegium and colonial knowledge production', Journal of Australian studies, 43 (1) (2019), 118-32, https://doi.org/10.1080/14443058.2019.1572024. Details
• Juterczenka, Sünne, 'Joseph Banks and the meanings of maritime exploration in eighteenth-century Europe', Journal of maritime research, 21 (1/2) (2019), 45-62. https://doi.org/10.1080/21533369.2020.1718831. Details
• King, Robert J.; and Ibáñez, Victoria, 'A Letter from Thaddaeus Haenke to Sir Joseph Banks, Sydney Cove, 15 April 1793', Archives of Natural History, 23 (1996), 255-9. Details
• McGillivray, D. J., 'Joseph Banks: a "tolerable" botanist', Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society, 57 (1) (1971), 10-6. Details
• Medway, David G., 'The Fate of the Bird Specimens from Cook's Voyages Possessed by Sir Joseph Banks ', Archives of Natural History, 36 (2009), 231-243 . Details
• Morgan, Kenneth, 'Sir Joseph Banks as patron of the Investigator expedition: natural history, geographical knowledge and Australian exploration', International journal of maritime history, 26 (2014), 235-64. Details
• Orchiston, Wayne, 'Cook, Banks and the Gregorian Telescope in The Museum of New Zealand Te Papa, Tongarewa', Journal of the Antique Telescope Society, 18 (1999) (1999), 4-9. Details
• Rauschenberg, R. A., 'A letter of Sir Joseph Banks describing the life of Daniel Solander', Isis, 55 (1968), 62-7. Details
• Salkin, A. I., 'Short History of the Discovery and Naming of Banksias in Eastern Australia: Part 1, Banks and Solander', The Victorian naturalist, 98 (2) (1981), 69-71. Details
• Simpson, Daniel, 'Ethnographic collecting and the despotism of Joseph Banks', Journal of maritime research, 21 (1/2) (2019), 77-95, https://doi.org/10.1080/21533369.2020.1717166. Details
• Stearn, W. T., 'Sir Joseph Banks (1743-1820) and Australian Botany', Records of the Australian Academy of Science, 2 (4) (1974), 7-24. http://www.publish.csiro.au/paper/HR9740240007.htm. Details
• Wheeler, Alwyn, 'Catalogue of the natural history drawings commissioned by Joseph Banks on the Endeavour voyage (1768 - 1771) held in the British Museum (Natural History), part 3: zoology', Bulletin of the British Museum (Natural History), historical series, 13 (1986), 1-172, https://doi.org/105962/p.310432. Details

Resources

• Wikidata, http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q153408. Details
• VIAF - Virtual International Authority File, OCLC, https://viaf.org/viaf/46830189. Details
• Papers of Sir Joseph Banks, State Library of New South Wales, 1997, http://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/banks/. Details
• 'Banks, Joseph (1748-1820)', Trove, National Library of Australia, 2009, https://nla.gov.au/nla.party-844508. Details

Reviews

• Harrison, Christina, The botanical adventures of Joseph Banks (2020)
  Dowe, John Leslie, Historical Records of Australian Science, 33 (1), (2022), 74, https://doi.org/10.1071/HR22902. Details
• Chambers, Neil, The Indian and Pacific Correspondence of Sir Joseph Banks, 1768-1820, volume 2: letters 1783-1789 (2009)
  Hibberd, David, Archives of Natural History, 26 (2), (2009), 371-371. Details
• Chambers, Neil ed., The Indian and Pacific Correspondence of Sir Joseph Banks, 1786-1820: volume 5, letters 1798-1801 (2011)
  Hibberd, David, Archives of Natural History, 40, (2013), 185-7. Details
• Musgrave, T., The multifarious Mr. Banks: from Botany Bay to Kew, the natural historian who shaped the world (2020)
  Morris, Andrew M., British journal for the history of science, 55 (1), (2022), 245-6. Details

See also

• Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering, Technology in Australia 1788-1988, Online edn, Australian Science and Technology Heritage Centre, Melbourne, 3 May 2000, http://www.austehc.unimelb.edu.au/tia/index_b.html. Details
• Beaglehole, J. C., The life of Captain James Cook (London: A. and C. Black, 1974), 760 pp. Details
• Brosse, Jacques; translated by Hochman, Stanley, Great voyages of exploration: the golden age of discovery in the Pacific (Lane Cove, N.S.W.: Doubleday Australia, 1983), 228 pp. Details
• Carr, Denis J., Sydney Parkinson: artist of Cook's Endeavour voyage (Canberra: British Museum (Natural History) in association with Australian National University Press, 1983), 300 pp. Details
• Endersby, Jim, 'A Garden Enclosed: Botanical Barter in Sydney, 1818-38', British Journal for the History of Science, 33 (2000), 313-334. Details
• Hall, Norman, Botanists of the Eucalypts: short biographies of people who have named eucalypts, whose names have been given to species or who have collected type material (Melbourne: CSIRO, 1978), 101 pp. Details
• Mabberley, D. J., Jupiter Botanicus: Robert Brown of the British Museum (Braunschweig: Verlag von J. Cramer, 1985), 500 pp. Details
• MacArthur, Antonia, His Majesty's bark Endeavour the story of the ship and her people (Pymble, N.S.W.: Angus and Robertson, 1997), 86 pp. Details
• MacInnis, Peter, Curious Minds: the Discoveries of Australian Naturalists (Canberra: National Library of Australia, 2012), 213 pp. Details
• Maiden, J. H., 'Records of Australian botanists:- (a) general; (b) New South Wales', Journal and Proceedings of The Royal Society of New South Wales, 42 (1908), 60-132. Details
• Pearn, John H., 'Hermann Diedrich Spöring (1773 - 1771), naturalist, artist, surgeon', in Australian and New Zealand Society of the History of Medicine biennial scientific meeting, Perth 2009 (Australian and New Zealand Society of the History of Medicine, 2009), p. 16.. https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:200355. Details
• Serle, Percival, Dictionary of Australian biography (Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1949). Details
• Steven, Margaret, First Impressions. The British Discovery of Australia (London: British Museum (Natural History), 1988), 96 pp. References on pages 25, 32, 63, 82, 83 and related issues through out the book. Details