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SIR WILLIAM JACKSON HOOKER (1785–1865)

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Originally appearing in Volume V13, Page 675 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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SIR WILLIAM JACKSON HOOKER (1785–1865)  ,
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English botanist, was born at Norwich on the 6th of
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July 1785 . His
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father, Joseph Hooker of Exeter, a member of the same
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family as the celebrated Richard Hooker, devoted much of his timeto the study of German literature and the cultivation of curious
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plants . The son was educated at the high school of Norwich, on leaving which his
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independent means enabled him to travel and to take up as a recreation the study of natural
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history, especially
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ornithology and entomology . He subsequently
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con-fined his attention to botany, on the recommendation of
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Sir James E . Smith, whom he had consulted respecting a rare
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moss . His first botanical expedition was made in Iceland, in the summer of 1809, at the
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suggestion of Sir Joseph Banks; but the natural history specimens which he collected, with his notes and drawings, were lost on the homeward voyage through the burning of the
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ship, and the young botanist himself had a narrow escape with his
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life . A good memory, however, aided him to publish an account of the island, and of its in- habitants and
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flora (Tour in Iceland, 18o9), privately circulated in 1811, and reprinted in 1813 . In 18ro–1811 he made extensive preparations, and sacrifices which proved financially serious, with a view to accompany Sir R . Brownrigg to
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Ceylon, but the disturbed state of the island led to the abandonment of the projected expedition . In 1814 he spent nine months in botanizing excursions in France,
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Switzerland and
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northern Italy, and in the following
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year he married the eldest daughter of Mr Dawson Turner, banker, of Yarmouth . Settling at Halesworth, Suffolk, he devoted himself to the formation of his herbarium, which became of
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world-wide renown among botanists . In 1816 appeared the
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British Jungermanniae, his first scientific
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work, which was succeeded by a new edition of William Curtis's Flora Londinensis, for which he wrote the descriptions (1817–'8.28); by a description of the Plantae cryptogamicae of A. von Humboldt and A .

Bonpiand; by the Muscologia Britannica, a very

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complete account of the mosses of
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Great Britain and Ireland, prepared in conjunction with Dr T . Taylor (1818); and by his Musci exotici (2 vols., 1818–182o), devoted to new
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foreign mosses and other cryptogamic plants . In 182o he accepted the regius professorship of botany in
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Glasgow University where he soon became popular as a lecturer, his style being both clear and ready . The following year he brought out the Flora Scotica, in which the natural method of arrangement of British plants was given with the artificial . Subsequently he pre-pared or edited many
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works, the more important being the following: Botanical Illustrations (1822) ; Exotic Flora, indicating such of the specimens as are deserving cultivation (3 vols., 1822–1827) ; Account of Sabine's Arctic Plants (1824); Catalogue of Plants in the Glasgow Botanic Garden (1825) ; the Botany of Parry's Third Voyage (1826) ; The Botanical
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Magazine (38 vols., 1827–1865) ; Icones Filicum, in concert with Dr R . K . Greville (2 vols., 1829–1831); British Flora, of which several
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editions appeared, undertaken with Dr G . A . W . Arnott, &c . (1830) ; British Flora Cryptogamia (1833) ; Characters of Genera from the British Flora (183o) ; Flora Boreali-Americana (2 vols., 184o), being the botany of British North
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America collected in Sir J . Franklin's voyage; The Journal of Botany (4 vols., 1830—1842) ; Companion to the Botanical Magazine (2 vols., 1835–1836) ; Icones plantarum (to vols., 1837–1854); the Botany of Beechey's Voyage to the Pacific and Behring's Straits (with Dr Arnott, 1841); the Genera Filicum (1842), from the
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original coloured drawings of F .

Bauer, with additions and descriptive letterpress; The
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London Journal of Botany (7 vols., 1842–1848) ; Notes on the Botany of the Antarctic Voyage of the
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Erebus and Terror (1843) ;
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Species falicum (5 vols., 1846-1864), the standard work on this subject; A Century of Orchideae (1846); Journal of Botany and
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Kew Garden
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Miscellany (9 vols., 1849–1857) Niger Flora (1849) ; Victoria Regia (1851) ; Museums of Economic Botany at Kew (1855); Filices exoticae (1857–1859); The British Ferns (1861–1862); A Century of Ferns (1854); A Second Century of Ferns (186o–1861) . It was mainly by Hooker's exertions that botanists were appointed to the government expeditions . While his works were in progress his herbarium received large and valuable additions from all parts of the globe, and his position as a botanist was thus vastly improved . He was made a knight of Hanover in 1836 and in 1841 he was appointed director of the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew, on the resignation of W . T . Aiton . Under his direction the gardens
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expanded from 1r to 75 acres, with an
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arboretum of 270 acres, many new glass-houses were erected, and a museum of economic botany was established . He was engaged on the Synopsis fi-licum,with J . G . Baker when he was attacked by a throat disease then epidemic at Kew, where he died on the 12th of August 1865 .

End of Article: SIR WILLIAM JACKSON HOOKER (1785–1865)
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