Jim Endersby

University of Sussex · Department of History School of Media Arts and Humanities

This essay examines the complex tangle of emotional and scientific attachments that linked Darwin and botanist Joseph Dalton Hooker. Analyzing their roles as husbands, fathers, and novel readers demonstrates that possessing and expressing sympathy was as important for Victorian naturalists as it was for Victorian husbands. Sympathy was a scientific...

Classification was a key practice of the natural history sciences in the early 19th century, but leading taxonomists disagreed over basic matters, such as how many species the British flora contained. In this arena, the impact of Charles Darwin’s ideas was surprisingly limited. For taxonomists like Darwin’s friend, Joseph Dalton Hooker, the priorit...

Hugo de Vries's mutation theory is now little more than a footnote to the history of biology, a failed theory that briefly led a few biologists astray. However, for the first quarter of the twentieth century it attracted considerable attention from both professional biologists and laypeople. De Vries's theory--together with the plant, Oenothera lam...

Abstract. Between 1916 and 1927, botanists in several countries independently resolved three problems that had mystified earlier naturalists – including Charles Darwin: how did the many species of orchid that did not produce nectar persuade insects to pollinate them? Why did some orchid flowers seem to mimic insects? And why should a native British...

The early decades of the twentieth century were marked by widespread optimism about biology and its ability to improve the world. A major catalyst for this enthusiasm was new theories about inheritance and evolution (particularly Hugo de Vries's mutation theory and Mendel's newly rediscovered ideas). In Britain and the USA particularly, an astonish...

Essay review: The quotable Darwin, by Janet Browne, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2018, 384 pp., $24.95/£20.00 (hardback), ISBN: 9780691169354. The theory that changed everything: ‘on the origin of species’ as a work in progress, by Philip Lieberman, New York, Columbia University Press, 2017, 232 pp., $30.00/£24.00 (hardback), ISBN: 978023...

Essay review for Annals of Science (Titles reviewed: The quotable Darwin, by Janet Browne; The theory that changed everything: ‘on the origin of species’ as a work in progress, by Philip Lieberman; Buckets from an English sea: 1832 and the making of Charles Darwin, by Louis B. Rosenblatt; Darwin’s evolving identity: adventure, ambition and the sin...

In 1924, the British biologist J.B.S. Haldane acknowledged that anyone who tried to predict where science was taking us was obliged to mention H.G. Wells, since ‘[t]he very mention of the future suggests him’. Nevertheless, Haldane complained that Wells was ‘a generation behind the time’, having been raised when flying and radiotelegraphy were genu...

Brief article about Joseph Hooker to celebrate his bicentenary.

At once delicate, exotic, and elegant, orchids are beloved for their singular, instantly recognizable beauty. Found in nearly every climate, the many species of orchid have carried symbolic weight in countless cultures over time. The ancient Greeks associated them with fertility and thought that parents who ingested orchid root tubers could control...

Book Review (from Science) "Newton's Apple and Other Myths About Science", edited by Ronald L. Numbers and Kostas Kampourakis (Harvard University Press, 2015).

T he question of how species evolved was debated long before the time of Charles Darwin, as Niles Eldredge shows in a meticulously researched history of evolutionary theories that will likely be unfamiliar to most readers. It is generally acknowledged that although Jean-Baptiste Lamarck had a few evolutionary notions (something about giraffes stret...

Joseph Dalton Hooker has conventionally been regarded as a proponent of scientific naturalism; one of the those Victorian men of science whose explanations of natural phenomena excluded divine purpose and teleology in favour of: the atomic theory of matter; the conservation of energy; and, evolution. Naturalism often appears like the glue that conn...

The life of Joseph Dalton Hooker (1817-1911) provides an invaluable lens through which to view mid-Victorian science. A biographical approach makes it clear that some well-established narratives about this period need revising. For example, Hooker's career cannot be considered an example of the professionalisation of the sciences, given the doubtfu...

Bernard Lightman's name is closely connected with two topics that are among the most important for scholars of the Victorian period. His groundbreaking first book, The Origins of Agnosticism (1987), established him as one of the world's most significant scholars of the complexities of the impact of science on Victorian religious faith. More recentl...

I agree with Wheeler that “The goal of taxonomists is not to arrive at an objective definition of species uniformly agreed upon by all,” yet I doubt that everyone who uses specific names would agree that testing our theories of species is the only (or even the main) goal of classification, any

Some early nineteenth-century American naturalists condemned their contemporary, Constantine Samuel Rafinesque (1783-1840), as 'eccentric', or worse. Both during his life and long after his death, his botanical work in particular was criticised, even ridiculed. However, in recent years, attempts have been made to restore his reputation and the term...

Carl Linnaeus Philosophia Botanica (OUP), translated by Stephen Freer.

The nineteenth-century British botanist, Joseph Dalton Hooker,was one of the people whose career became a model for that of the modern,professional scientist.However,he preferred to refer to himself as a philosophical botanist, rather than a professional. This paper explores the reasons for this choice,and analyses Hooker's imperial approach to pla...

The Darwin Correspondence Project has already spent over thirty years tracking down and publishing every known letter to or from Charles Darwin. Although a hefty new volume of letters currently appears every year, only half of the anticipated volumes have been published. And given their prohibitive cost (currently £75/$135 each), the recent news th...

Despite the title of Charles Darwin's most celebrated work, he never clearly defined species. As a result, the question of what (if anything) Darwin really thought species were has been the subject of much discussion. By carefully examining Darwin's writings, both published and unpublished, David N. Stamos believes it is possible to end these debat...

The abstract for this document is available on CSA Illumina.To view the Abstract, click the Abstract button above the document title.

Without Abstract

This chapter discusses mid-Victorian natural history sciences, focusing on the disputes over the classification within both the zoological and botanical communities. Zoologists argued over the merits of William Macleay's quinary system, claiming that all organisms could be classified in groups of five. Botanists attacking the Linnaean or sexual sys...

R. W. HOME, A. M. LUCAS, SARA MAROSKE, D. M. SINKORA and J. H. VOIGT (eds.), Regardfully Yours: Selected Correspondence of Ferdinand von Mueller. Volume II: 1860–1875. Bern: Peter Lang, 2002. Pp. 865. ISBN 3-906757-09-9. £36.00 (hardback). - - Volume 37 Issue 2 - JIM ENDERSBY

DAVID ELLISTON ALLEN, Naturalists and Society: The Culture of Natural History in Britain, 1700–1900. Variorum Collected Studies Series: CS724. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2001. Pp. xiv+298. ISBN 0-86078-863-6. £55.00 (hardback). - - Volume 37 Issue 1 - JIM ENDERSBY

Frederick Burkhardt, et al "The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 11" (1863), Cambridge University Press.

Gentlemanly Generation: In the summer of 1838, Charles Darwin considered marriage. The disadvantages included losing the 'freedom to go where one liked', while staying single would mean avoiding 'the expense & anxiety of children'. But then, he reflected, 'only picture to yourself a nice soft wife on a sofa with good fire, & books & music perhaps'....

Between 1844 and 1860, Joseph Dalton Hooker published a series of major floras of the southern oceans, including the first floras of Tasmania and New Zealand. These books were essential to establishing his scientific reputation. However, despite having visited the countries he described, Hooker relied on a large network of unpaid, colonial collecto...

In 1998 a new classification of flowering plants generated headlines in the non-specialist press in Britain. By interviewing those involved with, or critical of, the new classification, this essay examines the participants' motives and strategies for creating and maintaining a research group. It argues that the classification was produced by an inf...

Joseph Hooker became one of the most influential botanists of his day. He is best remembered as a friend of Charles Darwin and an early advocate of natural selection. However, after returning to Britain from his first major voyage, Hooker spent years struggling to find a paid position that would allow him to pursue his studies of plant classificati...

The creators of Sydney's botanic garden were a varied group of people with diverse agendas and interests, only some of whom saw themselves as men of science. While several were trying to advance botany, others were more concerned with self-advancement or financial gain. Yet they collaborated, almost unintentionally, to found Australia's first sc...

This paper examines a recent exhibition on evolution at the Australian Museum, in Sydney, and contrasts it with the museum's earlier exhibitions on the same theme, looking at the images of science each presents. The differences between the most recent display and its predecessors can be broadly grouped under three themes: the use of narrative and c...