Makers of British Botany; a collection of biographies by living botanists
History
Makers of British Botany; a collection of biographies by living botanists
Botanists -- Great Britain -- Biography; Botany -- Great Britain -- History
The most conspicuous direct services rendered by Lindley to the Society
were the laying out of the Society's garden at Chiswick and the
organisation, with Bentham, of the celebrated flower-shows which have
served as models for the exhibits of horticultural societies all over
the world. Those who know how extraordinarily valuable, not only to
horticulturists but also to botanists, are the periodical "shows" held
by the Royal Horticultural Society, will be grateful to Lindley for the
perspicuity which led him to replace the old and gaudy "fêtes" by these
admirable exhibitions.
Lindley's Professorship of Botany in University College, London, dates
from 1828 and was held for over a quarter of a century. Among those
who attended his lectures were Carpenter, Edwin Lankester, Griffith,
Daubeny and Williamson. His lectureship to the Society of Apothecaries
began in 1835, and in 1841 in which year the _Gardeners' Chronicle_ was
founded, he became editor of that periodical. This post he held till
his death in 1865.
It might be supposed that the multifariousness and onerousness of
Lindley's official and routine duties left little time for other work.
Yet Lindley made time not only for scientific investigation and for the
writing of numerous monographs and text-books; but also for a large and
varied amount of public work. In the Lindley correspondence preserved
at Kew are to be found letters and papers (official correspondence
1832-1854) criticising trenchantly the mismanagement of the Royal
forests and recommendations on the selection and cultivation of trees
for the charcoal employed in the manufacture of gunpowder.
Lindley, together with Hooker, acted as adviser to the Commissioners of
the Admiralty with respect to the planting of the Island of Ascension.
The potato famine was the occasion of an official visit to Ireland
and led to a report by Lindley, Sir Robert Kave and Sir Lyon Playfair
which was the immediate cause of the Repeal of the Corn Laws. As Sir
Robert Peel told Lindley "in the face of the Report, the repeal could
no longer be avoided." Thus the potato takes rank with the chance word,
the common soldier, the girl at the door of an inn that have changed or
almost changed the fate of nations.
_Lindley and Kew._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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