natural to study all these productions of Nature, than Greek or Latin’. Further along
the lane he found some old women collecting herbs to be sold to the apothecaries in
town. He asked them the names of the different flowers and they agreed for the sum
of sixpence to teach him all they knew of the types of wildflowers, their seasons, and
where they could be collected. His life now had an aim. It was natural history and he
began collecting as many wildflowers, butterflies, beetles and insects as he could find.
Joseph Banks continued his botanical studies at Oxford University where he made
himself a disciple of the leading botanist of Europe, the great Swedish naturalist
Carl Linnaeus. Finding there was no Linnaean lecturer in botany at Oxford he
characteristically recruited a professor from Cambridge at his own expense to lecture
to himself and his colleagues. He went down from Oxford in 1764 without completing
a degree, which was not uncommon among the gentry, and especially as this was also
the year he gained his inheritance. This included all his family’s landed estates in
Lincolnshire which provided one of the great interests of his life, since farming can
be considered as a form of applied botany. With his new-found wealth and position
in society Joseph Banks found he could be both self-indulgent and slightly eccentric,
characteristics which he would continue to enjoy throughout his life. After his father
had died his mother bought a house in London near the Chelsea Physic Garden. Here
an older neighbour, John Montagu, became
firm friends with the young Banks and when
as Lord Sandwich he gained the position of
First Lord of the Admiralty this friendship
was to prove extremely advantageous to
Banks.
A spirit of adventure was in Joseph Banks’
aristocratic blood and in 1766 he joined a
Royal Navy expedition as the naturalist on
the HMS Niger sailing to the remote shores
of Labrador and Newfoundland. He made
several extended collecting excursions
ashore and the plants he brought home
formed the beginning of his herbarium.
He employed the botanist Daniel Solander
to help classify the specimens collected
from this expedition and the botanical artist
Sydney Parkinson to draw and paint them.
Daniel Solander was born in Sweden in
1733 and first studied Classics and law, then
medicine, before becoming interested inPortrait of Carl Linnaeus, Alexander Roslin, 1775,
Nationalmuseum Stockholm
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