Joseph Banks (1743-1820)

• Main Author: Duke, Norman C.
• Other Authors: Hopley, David
• Format: Book Part
• Language: unknown
• Published: Springer 2011
• Subjects: Endeavour; Newfoundland; Southern Ocean; Iceland
• Online Access: https://researchonline.jcu.edu.au/48517/16/48517%20Duke%202011.pdf

[Extract] BANKS, JOSEPH (1743-1820) Banks, a founding father of natural science and Australia, was born at London, Great Britain, on 13 February 1743, the only son of a wealthy landowner. He married Dorothea Hugesson on 23 March 1779. He died in Isleworth, London, on 19 June 1820, aged 77. Banks devoted his entire adult life toward the advancement of science. Returning triumphant from Captain Cook's first great voyage in 1771, the young Banks was famously dubbed 'The Botanic Macaroni' and 'The great South Sea caterpillar'. Over the next 50 years, however, this satiric 'caterpillar' was transformed the 'Bath Butterfly' by his 1795 royal investiture as Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath. He is honoured for remarkable achievements in an era of enlightened human endeavour with his: knighthood (1781); membership of the Privy Council (1797); and, unmatched four decade term as President of the Royal Society (1778-1820). Banks galvanized the great scientific minds of his time, systematised natural history collection and promoted foundation projects. His early credentials were botanical collections (in the British Museum) from expeditions to: Labrador and Newfoundland (1766-1767); the southern ocean with Captain Cook (1768-1771); and, Iceland and the New Hebrides (1772). Subsequently, he funded and encouraged others to gather and catalogue specimens of plants and animals throughout the world. Using his unofficial directorship of Kew Gardens in London to explore economic and social benefits of plants, he created one of the world's great public gardens. Banks was a natural leader, a rare individual with no political leanings or ambitions. While a favourite of King George III, he maintained a friendly correspondence with Benjamin Franklin in revolutionary America. He did not discriminate between British and foreign scientists. He helped maintain scientific relations with France during the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars. Banks was greatly respected by Carl Linnaeus whom devised the binomial naming system ...