Hooker, Joseph Dalton (1817 - 1911)

Summary

Sir Joseph Hooker was a British botanist and explorer. After completing his medical degree, he joined the Naval Medical Service. From 1839-1843 he accompanied Captain James Ross's Antarctic expedition as surgeon and naturalist on H.M.S. Erebus. Hooker published his botanical explorations on that voyage in three large works: Flora Antarctica (1844-1847), Flora Novae-Zelandiae (1853-1855) and Flora Tasmaniae (1855-1860). These books remain a significant contribution to the study of southern plants, written in a critical period in the history of biology with the ascent of Darwinism. Tasmanian botanists Ronald Gunn and William Archer assisted with sending his large plant collections to Kew Gardens in London. Joseph Hooker named many plants and several eucalypts. He commemorated Ronald Gunn in naming Eucalyptus gunnii for him in 1844. Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker succeeded his father Sir William Jackson Hooker in 1865 as director of the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew, London.

Details

Chronology

19 September 1839 - 4 September 1843

Career position - Assistant Surgeon, H.M.S. Erebus, British Antarctic Expedition

1840 - 1849

Career position - Corresponding Member, Tasmanian Natural History Society

1844

Taxonomy event - Eucalyptus gunnii Hook.f. (= Eucalyptus ovata Labill.)

1847

Taxonomy event - Eucalyptus vernicosa Hook.f.

1847

Taxonomy event - Eucalyptus urnigera Hook.f.

1847

Taxonomy event - Eucalyptus risdonii Hook.f.

1847

Taxonomy event - Eucalyptus gigantea Hook.f. (= Eucalyptus delegatensis R.T.Bak. (1920))

1847

Taxonomy event - Eucalyptus coccifera Hook.f.

1855 - 1865

Career position - Assistant Director, Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew, England

1860

Taxonomy event - Eucalyptus nitida Hook f.

1865 - 1885

Career position - Director, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, England

1892

Award - Darwin Medal, Royal Society of London

Related entries

Archival resources

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

• Joseph Dalton Hooker - Records, 1839 - 1907, ML DOC 1122; Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales. Details

National Herbarium, Melbourne

• Joseph Dalton Hooker - Records, 1857 - 1896, MSS M3; National Herbarium, Melbourne. 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

• Bentham, George and Hooker, Joseph Dalton, Genera plantarum ad exemplaria imprimis in herbariis kewensibus servata definata, 3 vols (London: Reeve & Co., 1862-83). Details
• Desmond, Ray, Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker, Traveller and Plant Collector (London: Antique Collectors Club in association with The Royal Horticultural Society, Kew, 1999), 286 pp. Details
• Galloway, David J., A Man Tenax Propositi: Transcriptions of Letters from Charles Knight to William Jackson Hooker and Joseph Dalton Hooker Between 1852 and 1883 ([Wellington]: Geoscience Society of New Zealand, 2013), 88 pp. Details
• Hooker, J. D., The botany of the Antarctic voyage of H.M. discovery ships Erebus and Terror in the years 1839 - 1843, part 2: flora novae-zealandiea, vol. 1-2 (London: Reeve Bros, 1852 - 1855). Details
• Hooker, J. D., The botany of the Antarctic voyage of H.M. discovery ships Erebus and Terror in the years 1839 - 1843, part 3: flora tasmaniae, vol. 1-2 (London: Reeve Bros, 1855 - 1859). Details
• Hooker, Joseph Dalton, On the Flora of Australia: its Origin, Affinities, and Distribution (London: Lovell-Reeve, 1859). Details
• Hooker, Joseph Dalton Sir, The botany of the Antarctic voyage of H.M. discovery ships Erebus and Terror, in the years 1839-1843, part 1: flora antarctica, vol. 1-2 (London: Reeve, 1844 - 1847). Details
• Huxley, L, Life and Letters of Sir J. D. Hooker, 2 vols (London: John Murray, 1918). Details
• McCalman, Iain,, Darwin's Armada (Camberwell (Vic.) : Viking, 2009), 422 pp. Details
• Nolden, Sascha, Nathan, Simon and Mildenhall, Esme, The Correspondence of Julius Haast and Joseph Dalton Hooker, 1861-1886 ([Wellington]: Geoscience Society of New Zealand, 2013), 219 pp. Details
• Turrill, W. B., Pioneer Plant Geography. The phytogeographical researches of Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker (The Hague: 1953). Details

Book Sections

• Curtis, Winifred M., 'Hooker, Sir Joseph Dalton (1817-1911), botanist and explorer' in Australian dictionary of biography, volume 4: 1851 - 1890 D-J, Douglas Pike, ed. (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1972), pp. 416-417. http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A040469b.htm. Details

Edited Books

• Yaldwyn, John and Hobbs, Juliet eds, My Dear Hector: Letters from Joseph Dalton Hooker to James Hector, 1862-1893 (Wellington: Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, 1998), 292 pp. Details

Journal Articles

• Earp, Clem, '"A Correspondence Long Interrupted": Ronald Gunn Re-establishes Contact with Joseph Hooker in 1870', The Victorian naturalist, 131 (6) (2014), 204-6. Details
• Endersby, J., '"From having no herbarium." Local knowledge versus metropolitan expertise: Joseph Hooker's Australasian correspondence with William Colenso and Ronald Gunn', Pacific science, 55 (4) (2001), 343-58. Details
• Galloway, D. J., 'Joseph Hooker, Charles Knight and the commissioning of New Zealand's first popular flora: Hooker's Handbook of the New Zealand Flora (1864-1867)', Tuhinga, 10 (1998), 31-62. Details
• Hansen, Anita, 'Colonial Correspondents and Joseph Dalton Hooker', Papers and Proceedings of the Royal Society of Tasmania, 147 (2013), 33-40. Details
• Hooker, J. D., 'George Bentham, FRS', Annals of Botany, 12 (1898). Details
• Hooker, J. D., 'Review of 'George Bentham'', Kew Bulletin (1906), 106. Details
• Jones, Cam Sharp, 'Animals, Joseph Dalton Hooker and the Ross expedition to Antarctica, 1839 - 1843', Journal of maritime research, 22 (1) (2020), 25-40. https://doi.org/10.1080/21533369.2020.18. Details
• Kantvilas, G., 'A Brief History of Lichenology in Tasmania, Australia', Proceedings of the Royal Society of Tasmania, 117 (1983), 41-52. Details
• Maiden, J. H., 'Sir Joseph Hooker. Presidential Address.', Journal and Proceedings of The Royal Society of New South Wales, xivi (1912), 3-6. Details
• Rice, Rebecca, '"My dear Hooker": the botanical landscape in colonial New Zealand', Museum history journal, 13 (1) (2020), 20-41. https://doi.org/10.1080/19369816.2020.1766296. Details
• Stevens, P.F., 'J.D. Hooker, George Bentham, Asa Gray and Ferdinand Mueller on Species Limits in Theory and Practice: a Mid-Nineteenth-Century Debate and its Repercussions', Historical Records of Australian Science, 11 (3) (1997), 335-344. https://doi.org/10.1071/HR9971130345. Details

Resources

• Wikidata, http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q157501. Details
• VIAF - Virtual International Authority File, OCLC, https://viaf.org/viaf/17306215. Details
• 'Hooker, Joseph Dalton (1817-1911)', Trove, National Library of Australia, 2009, https://nla.gov.au/nla.party-864210. Details

Reviews

• Desmond, Ray, Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker, Traveller and Plant Collector (1999)
  Ducker, Sophie C., Historical Records of Australian Science, 13 (3), (2001), 359-361. https://doi.org/10.1071/HR0011330351. Details

Theses

• Cave, Eleanor Catherine, 'Flora Tasmaniae: Tasmanian Naturalists and Imperial Botany, 1829-1860', PhD thesis, University of Tasmania, 2012, 385 pp. Details

See also

• 'List of genus Eucalyptus published under this authority use author abbreviation search 'Hook.f.' and genus 'Eucalyptus'', Australian Plant Name Index (APNI), Australian National Botanic Gardens, 2012, http://www.anbg.gov.au/cgi-bin/apni. Details
• Brown, Austin J., 'Ronald Gunn's Tasmanian "agrostid" grass collections (Poaceae)', Muelleria, 40 (2022), 57-131. Details
• Burns, Rowan and Nathan, Simon, My Dear Hooker: Transcriptions of Letters From James Hector to Joseph Dalton Hooker Between 1860 and 1898 (Lower Hutt, N.Z.: Geoscience Society of New Zealand, 2012), 208 pp. 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
• Henderson, M. Helen; and Henderson, William G., The greater prize than gold: Augustus Oldfield, nineteenth century botanical collector and ethnographer (Perth, W.A.: The Book Reality Experience, 2018), 520 pp. Details
• Lucas, Arthur M., 'Disposing of John Lindley's Library and Herbarium: the Offer to Australia', Archives of Natural History, 35 (1) (2008), 15-70. Details
• Maroske, Sara, 'Australian and Indian Plants: Making Connexions in Nineteenth-Century Botany', Historical Records of Australian Science, 23 (2) (2012), 107-29, https://doi.org/10.1071/HR12013. Details
• Palin, Michael, Erebus: the story of a ship (London: Arrow Books, 2018), 334 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 149, 158, 160, 161, 173, 182. Details