For the latest in the Special Collections A-Z, we look at I for islands. Special Collections holds a wide range of material relating to islands from the far flung to the very near to home. For this blog we will travel to a small selection represented in the collections to give a flavour of the range of material that can be explored.
HMS Hecla and Fury in their “winter island” as they are frozen in for the winter [MS45 A0183/2 p359]
For the more distant islands you can view the journals of William Mogg in which he describes his journeys as part of Captain William Edward Parry’s second and third Arctic expeditions, on board HMS Hecla and HMS Fury, 1821-5, including being frozen in at ‘Winter Island’ for nine months when the ice closed in. And there is a further Mogg journal when he was on aboard HMS Beagle exploring the coastline and islands of South America. Such items as Prince Louis of Battenberg’s album of his circumnavigation of the world on board HMS Inconstant provide us with glimpses of life in Japan, New Zealand or the Fiji Islands in the 1880s, as well as visits to St Helena and Gibraltar.
Fiji Islands from the album of Prince Louis of Battenberg [MS62/MB2/A20]
St Helena from the album of Prince Louis of Battenberg [MS62/MB2/A20]
A new acquisition to the Special Collections dating from 1896 is an eleven-volume travelogue of the Hon. Louis Samuel Montagu, later second Baron Swaythling, of his world tour (MS461) which includes not just his observations on his travels and the people and places he saw but some wonderful photographs from Japan. And for the 20th century we have photograph albums of Lord and Lady Mountbatten, as well as tour diaries of Lord Mountbatten, relating to visits to islands from the Mediterranean, the South Seas and the Far East, as well as Australia and New Zealand (MS62).
Images of Madeira from a photograph album of a tour taken by Lady Mountbatten, 1931 [MS62/MB2/L6 page 5]
For nearer to home, quite a variety of material has found its way to the Special Collections relating to the Isle of Wight. This includes items collected by the University’s predecessor the Hartley Institution in the late nineteenth century such as a pardon from James I to Thomas Urrey of Thorley, Isle of Wight, 8 June 1604 (MS6/1).
Pardon from James I to Thomas Urrey, 1604 [MS6/1]
Other items include descriptions of walks around the island such Sarah Jane Gilham’s “journal of seven weeks peregrinations at the most beautiful place on earth, namely the Isle of Wight”, 1850 (MS6/8), or Thomas Flood’s description of his walking tour of the island in 1845 (MS450).
The island was the inspiration for poetry by James B.Fell (MS14) as well as the long manuscript poem “Elizabeth the fair prisoner of Carisbrook”, mid-nineteenth century (MS5/32).
Within the papers of the Gordon family, who resided at Northcourt on the island, are a series of watercolours by Lady Julia Gordon that feature the house and garden (MS80). Special Collections also holds a collection of watercolours by the Revd John Lewis Petit (MS283). Those for the Isle of Wight range from Alum Bay to Yaverland and includes seascapes and landscapes as well as churches, which are the focus of many of his paintings.
Alum Bay: View from cliff top looking across to The Needles by J.L.Petit [MS283/55]
The working papers of the academic Lindsay Boynton includes considerable material on both Sir Richard Worsley and Appuldurcombe House (MS301). Special Collections also holds the editorial notes for the Victoria County History for Hampshire and the Isle of Wight (MS29) providing an interesting counterpoint to the range of published histories of the island held as part of the Cope Collection.
For politics on the island in the 19th and 20th centuries you can find a range of material in the papers of the first Duke of Wellington and the Broadlands Archives including extensive files for Earl Mountbatten of Burma as the Governor of the Isle of Wight.
Letter sent by internee at the Aliens’ Detention Camp, Douglas, Isle of Man, to Rabbi Dr Victor Schonfeld, 19 June 1917 [MS192 AJ413/7 f3]
Another island of the UK coast for which we hold quite a number of items is the Isle of Man. This ranges from material on the harbour defence in the 19th century in the Wellington Archive to material in quite a number of the Jewish archive collections relating to the use of the island in the 20th century for internment. This latter material includes not just reports on an inspection of the internment camps in the Second World War which can be found in archive of Solomon Schonfeld, but correspondence of internees in both World Wars.
Sketch of Mooragh internment camp, Ramsay, Isle of Man, by K.Rothschild, c.1940 [MS297/A890/2/1]
Sketch of Ramsay, Isle of Man, by Manfred Steinhardt, 1940 [MS297/A890/2/1]
To complement the more recent material relating to islands in the Mediterranean found in the papers of Lord and Lady Mountbatten, there is 19th-century papers in both the archive of the first Duke of Wellington and those of third Viscount Palmerston relating to the Ionian Islands, the seven islands that include Corfu, Paxos and Cefalonia. This covers the period from the Treaty of Paris in 1815 when the islands were placed under British protectorship, to 1864 when they were officially reunified with Greece.
First page of synopsis for “Refugee island” a proposed TV play by Norman Crisp [MS199/101/1]
And we travel even further with a fictional island although potentially situated in the South Seas. Taken from the archive of the writer Norman Crisp (MS199), this is a synopsis and script for a proposed TV play “Refuge Island”. Written in the response to the threat of the H-bomb, the play follows the story of an individual, who may or may not be a confidence trickster, and his scheme to create a “refuge island”.
To find more islands, or to find out more about any of the items mentioned, do explore the Epexio Archive Catalogue which contains details of the archival collections that we hold.
And do join us next week when we will have reached J for Jewish archives.
In the latest instalment of the Special Collections A-Z, the letter H is for Hospitals, and courtesy of the Cope Collection we have a whistle stop tour of some of the different types of hospital seen in Hampshire.
Hospitals are not always what they seem. Activities which took place within the walls of the twelfth-century foundations did not include a great deal of health care. Often attached to religious institutions, they provided accommodation for the aged and for travellers, and although this might involve a certain amount of care-giving, it was not usually their main purpose. In Southampton, God’s House Hospital was founded in 1185 by Gervaise le Riche to provide an almshouse for four aged men and women as well as shelter for pilgrims. At Winchester, St John’s Hospital, thought to be a foundation of the late Saxon period, supported the local poor and also needy travellers whilst the nearby Hospital of St Cross, founded between 1132 and 1136 by Henry of Blois, housed thirteen poor men, feeding a further one hundred daily.
The Hospital of St. Cross, by D.L. (1783) Rare Books Cope c WIN 33 pr1109
At the medieval leper hospitals there were few options for treatment, instead cleanliness and an adequate supply of food supported physical health and attendance at chapel sustained spiritual needs. Both Southampton and Winchester had leper hospitals and excavations at Magdalen Hill, the site of the Winchester hospital, suggest that it is one of the earliest in the country, dating from the 11th century. As the incidence of leprosy declined in England, the hospital was used as an almshouse until damage by Dutch prisoners of war in the seventeenth century, led to the buildings being abandoned and eventually pulled down in 1788. Of Southampton’s leper hospital, established in the 12th century, no trace remains above ground. Archaeological investigations place it on the main road out of the town in the vicinity of the present Civic Centre, where, like the Winchester hospital, though separated from the town, it was well-placed for collecting alms from passers-by.
Winchester Leper Hospital From: Description of the Hospital of St. Mary Magdalen, near Winchester, from drawings taken by Mr. Schnebbelie, August 1788 (1796) Rare Books Cope ff WIN 24
In the 18th century the concept of voluntary hospitals gained popularity, a local example being the Hampshire County Hospital at Winchester which opened in Colebrook Street in 1736. As the name suggests, voluntary hospitals were independent organisations, run by a committee of governors and funded by donations, often in the form of subscriptions. In the Collection of Papers, Rules and Orders relating to the Rise, Progress and Government of this Charity(1737) much can be learned about the reasons for the hospital’s establishment by Alured Clarke, a canon of Winchester Cathedral, and the way in which it was run. The ‘poor sick’ met the criteria for treatment, but children under seven, unless requiring an operation, pregnant women, people with ‘disordered senses’, those with infectious diseases or those who were unlikely to be cured were excluded.
List of patients treated at Hampshire County Hospital from: Alured Clarke Collection of Papers, Rules and Orders relating to the Rise, Progress and Government of this Charity (1737) Rare Books Cope 61
Subscribers of £1 or more could recommend in-patients who were admitted every Wednesday. Treatment was also available for out-patients and as Clarke believed that sickness was a result of un-Christian living, books of religious instruction were given to all patients. The Collection lists the rules which all those working or being treated at the hospital had to follow as well as diets for the patients.
The patients’ diets, from: Alured Clarke Collection of Papers, Rules and Orders relating to the Rise, Progress and Government of this Charity (1737) Rare Books Cope 61
With its strong connection to the armed forces it is not surprising that Hampshire has been home to major naval and military hospitals, the Royal Hospital Haslar opening at Gosport in 1753 and the Royal Victoria Hospital at Netley in 1863. By an order in Council of 1744, naval hospitals were required to be built at Portsmouth, Plymouth and Chatham, bringing to an end the haphazard system of treating the naval sick and wounded in civilian hospitals and private lodgings. In 1745 land was acquired on a peninsula on the western side of Portsmouth Harbour, although inconvenient to reach by road – most patients being expected to arrive by boat – the isolated position was seen as a way of deterring deserters, many of the patients being victims of press gangs. At the time, Haslar was the largest brick building in Europe and was designed to accommodate 1,500 men, treating medical, surgical, fever, dysentery, smallpox and scurvy cases. Despite the addition of two new wings in 1762, it was often overcrowded and on occasions old hulks had to be used to accommodate the overflow of patients.
Perspective view of the Royal Hospital now Building for the Reception of Sick and Wounded Seamen at Gosport, Hants. (1751) in Views in Hampshire v.2 no.160 Rare Books Cope ff 91.5 – only 3 sides of the building were built
For soldiers, medical treatment had traditionally been arranged on a regimental basis, large military hospitals first appearing in England towards the end of the 18th century. The Royal Victoria Hospital at Netley, which opened in 1863, was created in response to the Crimean War. Planned as a central block with two wings extending on both sides, the internal layout of the hospital famously met with Florence Nightingale’s disapproval. The small, poorly ventilated wards ran counter to the large wards with direct access to fresh air which she advocated, and although some concessions were made, including replacing the windows of the corridor fronting the hospital with arched openings, it was too late for significant changes to be made. With its 138 wards, Netley could accommodate 1,000 patients and as at Haslar, its relatively isolated position made desertion less likely.
Royal Victoria Military Hospital, Netley near Southampton. engraved by T.A. Prior, drawn by E. Duncan. (19–) in Views in Hampshire v.5 no.160 Rare Books Cope ff 91.5
Another type of hospital of which there are many examples in Hampshire is the cottage hospital. These were founded in the second half of the 19th century and were generally located in rural settings where they were intended to deal with emergencies – perhaps more prevalent with the mechanisation of farming – and to overcome the problem of patients and visitors having to travel long distances to the nearest voluntary hospital. A more homely environment was also thought to aid recovery. Petersfield Cottage Hospital opened in 1871 and with its hung tiles, gables and casement windows, it appears the epitome of the cottage hospital. Each of its wings had two small wards but like Netley, its ventilation was judged inadequate.
At the other end of the spectrum of hospital provision is Southampton General Hospital, which began life as the Southampton Workhouse Infirmary in 1902. Taken over by the Borough Council in 1929, it became Southampton General Hospital in 1948 and part of the National Health Service. The 1970s saw work beginning on the construction of a new 1,300 bed hospital at the rear of the site, provision also having to be made for the new Medical School, which opened in 1971 in partnership with the University.
View of the site for the new General Hospital behind the original buildings in A Teaching Hospital for Wessex (1969) Univ. Coll. LF 789.4M3
This was not the first involvement of the University with a hospital. In 1914 University College Southampton’s new buildings at Highfield, including those that now form part of the Library, had been lent to the War Office for use as a temporary hospital. For many years after the College re-occupied the site in 1919, much of its teaching was carried out in the huts previously used as the wards of the University War Hospital, the establishment of the University as a major provider of medical and nursing education then being some years away.
University College buildings showing huts retained from War Hospital, 1925 [MS1/Phot/39 ph 3076]
For the next instalment in our Special Collections A-Z series we hand the reins to Freida Stack for a post about John Gurwood, editor of the Duke of Wellington’s Dispatches. She kindly tells us she spent “four very enjoyable years working in the Archive”.
John Gurwood (1788-1845) was the career soldier who proposed to the Duke of Wellington that he should collect, edit and publish the Duke’s military papers from India to Waterloo. Over the course of fifteen years he produced a volume of the General Orders, 12 volumes of the Dispatches, a one volume Selections in English and in French, and he was working on the last of the eight volumes of the second and expanded edition of the Dispatches when he died.
MS61/WP2 “General Correspondence 1832-52” in the Wellington Papers contains the letters that the Duke and Gurwood exchanged as they worked closely together on this project. Papers relating to Gurwood are in MS321, seven Guard Books which were assembled by the Esher family, the descendants of Gurwood’s stepdaughter Eugénie Mayer.
Active service
On 30 March 1808 Gurwood enlisted as an Ensign in the 52nd Light Infantry. He served in the Peninsula War from August 1808 until April 1814 and MS321/5 contains letters that he wrote home to his mother. ‘My ink is made of the scrapings of Camp Kettles & Wine my other implements of writing accord with it therefore excuse my writing.’ In addition to accounts of army life and military battles the letters include requests for new clothes – a ‘small deal box’ with a new jacket and epaulettes, ‘2 shirts and a few socks may be crammed in’. He sent items home for his family – 2 Pipes of Wine, rings for his mother and the music of a waltz for his little sister.
He was severely wounded at Sabugal and received a bad head wound at the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo in January 1812 where he was in the Forlorn Hope in the lesser breach. He and his men got to the Citadel where he took the Governor’s surrender. Wellington rewarded Gurwood by presenting him with the Governor’s sword.* ‘If I have trodden the path to fame, how richly am I rewarded!’ he wrote to his mother. From this time Gurwood was well known to Wellington, frequently dining, and indeed hunting, with him.
An extract from Gurwood’s diary [MS321/5]
Gurwood’s diary lists the places through which the army passed in the campaign of June 1813 to April 1814 along with brief notes of incidents – ‘Coughlan killed. With Gen Pakenham in a flag of truce twice to bury the dead on condition of the French not taking away the arms under fire.’ He went home on leave after the end of the war and then became ADC to Sir Henry Clinton, the second in Command to the Prince of Orange. He resigned after a contretemps, and fought with the 10th Hussars at Waterloo where his horse was shot under him.
Service in peacetime
Gurwood’s ambition all his life was to be a career soldier. He was still a regimental Captain at the end of the war and was aware that, with the coming of peace, his chances of promotion were severely diminished. The seniority rule had already told against him. His enlistment at the age of 20, rather than the more usual 16 or 18, had prevented him from being promoted as a reward for fighting in the Forlorn Hope because he had not served long enough as a Lieutenant.
What was even more serious for Gurwood was that promotion in the army was customarily by purchase where a man sold his current rank in order to buy the next one thus offsetting the cost. Non-purchase commissions could not be sold and so Gurwood was faced with paying the full £3200 for a Majority in a Marching Regiment and then £4500 for a Lieutenant Colonelcy. The son of a London merchant who had died when his son was three, he had neither a substantial private income nor a father to support him, and he was forced to make persistent and embarrassing applications to Horse Guards, to the Duke of York as Commander in Chief, and most tiresomely of all to the Prince Regent who was the Colonel of his Regiment. Gurwood describes the solicitations that he made again and again in person and in writing, and the numerous occasions on which he was promised a promotion and it did not materialise.
He did become a Brevet Major in 1820, brevet being a non-regimental rank with a little extra pay and a supposedly stronger case for promotion within his regiment, and seven years later he was made Brevet Lieutenant Colonel when he was ordered to the West Indies. He was still however a regimental Captain.
Editing the General Orders
Gurwood took with him to the West Indies the General Orders that Wellington had issued in the Peninsula, France and Belgium, these amounting by the end of the war to seven large printed volumes. General Orders were issued daily by Headquarters and regiments were required to convey them to their officers and soldiers. They covered all aspects of army life – rations, forage, mules, plunder – and this attention to detail made a major contribution to the success of the campaigns. Gurwood reduced the massive amount of material to one volume. He arranged it under headings listed in alphabetical order with the contents cross-referenced. The Duke gave his consent to publication of the General Orders in 1832 and the first edition of 1000 copies sold rapidly.
Registers of general of general orders issued by the Adjutant General’s department of the army in the Peninsula and Southern France [MS61/WP9/1/2]
Editing the Dispatches
The Duke’s delight with the General Orders emboldened Gurwood to propose to him that his military papers should be published. The Duke’s reply that he had ‘not the smallest objection to what you propose to do’ belied the energy with which the Duke entered into the project. Over the course of the next years Gurwood sent the Duke every document for approval and the man who prided himself on doing the business of the day in the day turned the material around quickly despite his many public and private commitments: ‘there is no impediment to any serious occupation like a House full of Company; particularly when part of the Company is a Member of the Royal Family.’
Assembling the material proved to be much more problematic than Gurwood had envisaged. It was difficult even to find papers in the Duke’s many residences. In December 1833 the Duke reported that he had found some interesting correspondence and would seek for more when he got to London. In August 1834 he said that he had spent three days in ‘a diligent search’ for some papers but without success. Gurwood tracked down papers in official institutions in England – the Commander in Chief’s Office, the Ordnance, Horse Guards – and sought papers from the Portuguese War Ministry.
He wrote, sometimes repeatedly, to ask recipients for copies of letters from the Duke. Many were pleased to respond but some were elusive or unwilling. Admiral Berkeley’s daughter came up with a succession of obstacles to handing over her father’s papers, which were eventually obtained by his son in law after what Gurwood described as a ‘burglary’. Lord Clarendon was extremely unhappy about placing himself in the public domain having already been heavily criticised in Napier’s History. The Duke’s reassurance that nothing would be published which did not redound to Clarendon’s honour gave him the confidence to send his papers.
The issue of deletions and omissions came up very early in the project. The Duke wrote to Gurwood on 28 November 1833 that he would not like ‘any correction of other peoples statements’ but two weeks later was extremely concerned about the inclusion of the allegation that he had hanged 10 to 15 men in India. Gurwood responded by marking up in red passages that could be deleted on the grounds that some were irrelevant and some might ‘be subjected to misconstruction if laid before the public.’ From that time the Duke made deletions on the grounds that the sensibilities of living protagonists and their families had to be taken into account as well as political and diplomatic consequences. Requests by individuals to omit material were evidently common, Gurwood telling the Duke that ‘almost every person who has assisted me in the compilation has made, or suggested, stipulations.’
In the summer of 1835 the Duke lost confidence in the efficacy of publishing anything at all. ‘I shall certainly be involved in a Controversy with Nations as well as Individuals which will not be an agreeable pastime in my old age.’ Gurwood confronted the Duke’s doubts directly and listed three options: continuing the publication under the Duke’s direction; continuing in this way but depositing the printed copies securely with the Duke; discontinuing the project. At the risk of being ‘still more presumptuous’ he observed that although the Duke had had ‘many difficult and unpleasant duties’ imposed upon him he still owed a duty ‘to history and posterity’. There is no reply in the Wellington Papers but it is a sign of the Duke’s respect for Gurwood’s abilities as an editor that the work continued. The Duke’s son, Lord Douro, was clearly impressed and amused by Gurwood’s temerity. ‘I must say I think his Grace must have opened his eyes when you dictated his duty to him.’
The Duke saw every document several times during the editing process. He approved the text at every stage and it was he who gave the final consent to what was published. It is clear from their letters that the Duke and Gurwood worked extremely well together, both turning the material round quickly while paying great attention to detail. His editorial work took a heavy toll on Gurwood who rose early and worked late. He suffered all his life from the after-effects of his wounds, and periodically had a physical and mental collapse from over-work causing great concern to his family and his friends. ‘Come abroad,’ his friend Lord Hertford wrote in December 1838 when Gurwood was faced with compiling the Index to the 12 volumes of the Dispatches, ‘resume your old and pleasant life’.
Letter from Arthur Wellesley, first Duke of Wellington to Lieutenant Colonel J.Gurwood, 19 May 1836: “the truth is that I am obliged to look at everything. I am always upon the stage. People are always endeavouring [f1v] to find the means of picking holes in my jerkin.” [MS61/WP2/40/26]
The Dispatches were an immediate success with booksellers reporting that readers were always anxious for the publication of the next volume. Gurwood produced a one volume Selections to meet the complaint that the twelve volumes were too expensive, and indeed too long, for some readers. In 1842 he started work on a revised edition that would include the many new papers that were still being discovered. Gurwood was awarded a pension from the Civil List for literary services and in late 1839 on the Duke’s recommendation he was appointed Deputy Lieutenant of the Tower of London.
In late 1845 Gurwood started to experience severe insomnia. ‘I have been confined to my room with Insomnia for ten days – not a wink of sleep!’ He made his will and wrote a long document listing his property. It ended with instructions on how the last volume of the Dispatches should be completed. On 27 December he committed suicide.
An inquest verdict of temporary insanity allowed his burial to be in consecrated ground. He lies in the vaults of the Tower of London and there is a memorial to him in the Tower Chapel.
*The sword along with a bust of Gurwood, his snuff box and his Waterloo medal are on display at the Royal Green Jackets Museum, Winchester.
If this has whetted your appetite for more, Freida has published a book on Gurwood available from gurwood.stack@gmail.com for £13 incl p&p.
The sixth instalment of the Archives A-Z concerns certain works in one of our collections of printed material: the Floras donated to the University by Sir Edward Salisbury in 1977-78, which form part of the Salisbury Collection.
Sir Edward James Salisbury (1886 -1978) spent most of his 92 years pursuing his passion for botany, from his boyhood spent examining and documenting the flowers around his home at Limbrick Hall on Harpenden Common, to adulthood spent largely in academia at University College, London, and East London College. Most notable amongst his published works are a series of textbooks written in collaboration with fellow botanist Felix Eugen Fritsch, and his popular book The Living Garden (1936), for which he was awarded the Veitch Memorial Medal of the Royal Horticultural Society, recognising “outstanding contribution to the advancement of the science and practice of horticulture.”
Detail from cover of The Living Garden, 1936. Salisbury Coll. SB 453 SAL
His involvement in, and honours from eminent botanical societies are almost too numerous to list, but his positions include founder member of the British Ecological Society in 1913, vice-president for both the Royal Society (who awarded him the Royal Medal in 1945) and the Linnean Society, secretary of the British Ecological Society, and president of Section K (Agriculture) of the British Association. He was also a member of the Agricultural Research Council, was awarded Honorary LL.Ds from both Edinburgh and Glasgow University, and was Fullerton Professor of the Royal Institution from 1947 to 1952.
Perhaps Salisbury’s greatest challenge came in 1943, when he became Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, a position he held until his retirement in 1956. With little funding or staff, he was responsible for the recovery of post-war Kew; his work included restoring the famous Palm House and establishing an Australian House for antipodean plants. He was knighted in recognition of his work in 1946.
Naturally, as enthusiast, academic, author, gardener and Director of Kew, Salisbury amassed a large collection of botanical works, including many Floras: published works listing plants of a particular region (the word in this context is usually capitalised, to distinguish it from the lower-case flora, meaning the plants themselves). During the 1977-78 academic year, Salisbury donated his collection of regional Floras of the British Isles to the Biological Sciences section of the Wessex Medical Library at the University of Southampton. His books, combined with botanical works presented by the family of Walter Frank Perkins in 1948, are now housed in Special Collections in the Hartley Library as the Salisbury Collection.
The earlier Floras in Salisbury’s collection form part of the Rare Books sequence, and reflect the 19th century’s shift in perspective of the study of botany: from a subject for dedicated, educated scientists to one that could be enjoyed as a hobby by the wider public.
Among the earliest Floras is Richard Relhan’s Flora Cantabrigiensis (1785). Like most scientific publications until the early 19th century, it is written in Latin, including the preface, with few English notes, and may have been somewhat impenetrable to the general public and certainly to a modern-day amateur! Relhan was a botanist and Fellow of King’s College, Cambridge, and his intended readership would have been academics who had learned Latin as the international language of scholarship. It wasn’t until around 1800 that the publication of scientific works in Latin began to diminish, and started to be written in the vernacular language of the author, which allowed the wider public greater access to scientific knowledge. I certainly needed the help of an online translation tool to discover that the Anemone pulsatilla (more commonly known these days as pulsatilla vulgaris, or pasqueflower) is a violet colour!
Floras which might also prove troublesome for the amateur are those which don’t include descriptions of the plants, for example Flora Sidostiensis (1849), by W. H. Cullen. The author writes in the preface that he “will feel amply repaid for any trouble in compiling this little publication, if it attracts but one individual to the Study of Botany”, yet we may wonder how this individual could begin to study botany with no descriptions with which to identify the plants he finds?
William Gardiner explains the customary process in the introduction to his Flora of Forfarshire (1848):
“It is not in accordance with the rules laid down by some of our best botanists for the construction of a local Flora, that the plants should be described, which would only render the volume more bulky without adding to its usefulness. Every one studying British botany, it is presumed, is in possession of one or another of the standard Floras, and there the characters and descriptions … are detailed at length. With a descriptive Flora in one hand, and a local one in the other, therefore, each will perform its legitimate part …”
Page numbers of the descriptive Floras Hookers’s British Flora (1842) and Babington’s Manual of British Botany (1843) are given in Gardiner’s book, so that the reader could refer to these “standard Floras”, but I imagine that consulting two separate publications in order to identify one plant could be quite tricky, especially if the plant was in a hard-to reach area, such as a mountainside. It would be difficult to go back for another look, and equally as hard to take two books, or to stand in a perilous position and make notes!
William Gardiner, Flora of Forfarshire, 1848. Rare Books Salisbury Coll. QK 308
Other Floras are closer to the all-in-one, comprehensive guide that would appeal to an amateur plant-spotter. M. H. Cowell’s A Floral Guide for East Kent (1839) includes a map of potential walks, with the plants listed according to each walking area, divided into months, and brief descriptions, so that “ … The student is thus shewn the precise spot in which many of the plants are to be found … he is also enabled to see, at one view, such of the characters, the color … as will lead him, with tolerable probability of success, to recognize a plant, for which he may be in search; it only remains, then, for him to determine its identity by referring to a descriptive catalogue.” While this still requires a descriptive Flora to make a definite identification, it seems much easier to have the basics to refer to in the same volume as the suggested locations of the plants!
M. H. Cowell, A Floral Guide for East Kent, 1839. Rare Books Salisbury Coll. QK 306.K4
It’s evident that by 1881 and the publication of Wild Flowers of the Undercliff, Isle of Wight (1881) by Charlotte O’Brien and C. Parkinson that the practice of identifying plants was no longer the preserve of scientists, botanists or botany students who may already possess a descriptive Flora, but also appealed to a wider audience with an occasional interest. Charlotte O’Brien herself was neither a student of botany nor a scientist, but an activist for social reform and an amateur plant collector. Her philanthropic spirit reveals itself in the introduction where she write of her hope that the book “… will be considered to have fulfilled its mission if it succeeds in providing a definite and healthful object for the daily walk, when, perchance, the peaceful floral trophies gathered by loving hands from wood and field may rejoice the heart and gladden the eyes of some beloved invalid at home.” With colour illustrations and easy descriptions, it’s a far cry from the Flora Cantabrigiensis of almost 100 years earlier.
Charlotte O’Brien and C. Parkinson, Wild Flowers of the Undercliffe, Isle of Wight, 1881. Rare Books Salisbury Coll. QK 306.W4
The Salisbury floras are the tip of the iceberg of botanical material held in the University of Southampton Special Collections. Works on gardening and garden design, herbals, botanical illustrations and a 19th century herbarium span several collections including the Cope Collection, the Perkins Agricultural Library, and the library of the Hampshire Gardens Trust. For more information on this fascinating material, see these previous Special Collections blog posts:
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University of Southampton Special Collections 