This thesis considers the history and significance of the Museum of Economic Botany at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, focussing especially on the period from its opening in 1847 to the eve of the First World War. Looking specifically at the Museum's collection of wood specimens and artefacts, it seeks to understand the nature of economic botany during this period, and to evaluate the contribution made to the field by the Kew Museum. Through examination of the Museum's practices, networks, spaces, and objects, it sets out to address the question: how do museums produce scientific knowledge? Part One sets the context. Chapter One provides a brief historical account of nineteenth-century economic botany and the Museum. Chapter Two offers a critical overview of literatures on Kew and economic botany; on the role of place in the production, circulation, and reception of scientific knowledge; and on the role of the public museum in Victorian science and culture. It also outlines the conceptual framework of the thesis. Chapter Three presents an account of the methodology and sources. Part Two highlights museum practices. Chapters Four to Six are devoted respectively to the practices of ‘exhibition' (the spatialities, rhetorics, and rationalities of display); ‘instruction' (the educational uses of museum objects); and ‘supply' (the circulation of objects). Part Three turns to specific objects and their biographies. Chapters Seven and Eight trace respectively the production, circulation and reception of a totem pole from British Columbia and a timber trophy from Tasmania, to demonstrate how objects acquire diverse meanings in diverse contexts, and how they are used to impart meaning to particular sites. In conclusion, Chapter Nine reflects on the cumulative findings of the thesis and on its potential outcomes, and it looks beyond the thesis to recommend areas for future research and practice.

The project traces the cultural changes in European botanic gardens with special reference to those in Britain, from the early days of medicine to more recent habitat creations and from plant taxonomy through to the new science of plant ecology. The main aim was to identify which British botanic gardens contribute to the biodiversity, conservation and display of British flora. Another important part was to :find out the opinions of the botanic garden administration and the informed public, thereby discovering the merits, validity and impact of British habitat creation within the botanic garden situation. First-hand investigations were made into the types of habitat which have, or are being, created, discovering habitat definition and the principles behind habitat creation as well as the value that these habitats have for conservation and education. During the research period, out of the listed botanic gardens, twelve botanic gardens were found to contribute in a major way to British Habitat Creation, most of them being influenced by their geographical position. A small number show some evidence of British habitat representation but not in a sufficiently comprehensive manner for detailed study. Botanic gardens are becoming more aware of the recovery, maintenance and preservation of genetic purity of native species. For further reform to take place there is a need to review training programmes to include principles of British conservation as well as co-ordinated action between national and local wildlife groups and to improve interpretation and display in order to encourage public interest in British habitats.

This thesis discusses the late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century plantsman and his ‘garden for curiosity’, an encyclopaedic collection of plants accumulated for learned study and experiment. Between the mid-1680s and the 1730s standards of English horticulture were significantly raised, and the number of new exotics that were successfully acclimatized grew considerably. Before the reorganisation of the Apothecaries’ Physic Garden at Chelsea in the 1720s, however, the lead given by the country’s public institutions and the court to encourage these improvements was often insubstantial or short-term. Their efforts, in general, compared poorly to the achievements of European counterparts, such as the Jardin du Roi in Paris, or the Hortus at the University of Leiden. The initiatives of the Dutch East India Company to exploit the flora of their trading posts around the world were similarly unmatched. It is argued, therefore, that the activities of a small, pioneering group of learned, expert horticulturists were especially valuable to the development of botany and gardening in England during this period. The thesis focuses on Charles du Bois (1658-1740), treasurer of the East India Company, William Sherard (1659-1728), a diplomat with the Levant Company, and his brother James (1666-1738), an apothecary. All became well-known botanists and were members of the Royal Society. Du Bois’s garden, at Mitcham in Surrey, and the Sherards’, at Eltham in Kent, were highly regarded for the range of hardy and tender species grown in them. The German botanist Johann Jakob Dillenius (1687-1747) documented over four hundred examples from the Sherards’ collection in his Hortus Elthamensis (1732), an important pre-Linnaean work. Gardens such as Eltham and Mitcham were labour-intensive, and expensive to run. Ample leisure and a sizeable disposable income were required to keep their ranges of hothouses and beds well stocked, and maintained. It is significant that du Bois and the Sherards were from the ‘middling’ ranks of society, lacking the benefit of landed wealth to fund their pursuits. Their fortunes needed to be made. The thesis is therefore divided into two parts. The first five chapters examine the background to these men’s collecting endeavours, and their working lives. The final three attempt to reconstruct their gardens and discuss their horticultural activities. Sources drawn on included private correspondence, personal papers and diaries, company records, wills and inventories, parish records, maps and pictorial material, and herbaria. Contemporary printed works of natural history and horticulture, and a satire were additionally consulted. The thesis begins by outlining the state of botanical study in England at the end of the seventeenth century, explaining why plants in any state, dried or living, were being so avidly collected at that time. The analysis of Du Bois and the Sherards’ careers that follows considers the reasons why they created their gardens, and how they could afford to do so. It also looks at the different influences on their collecting, and why they were especially well placed to take up this interest. The second part is devoted to Mitcham and Eltham. The layout of the sites is covered, as well as the apparatus installed to acclimatize all manner of tender exotics. The gardeners employed, species cultivated, experiments undertaken, and the fate of the collections on the death of their owners, are examined. Du Bois and the Sherards’ relationships with the botanical and horticultural communities are studied, demonstrating the role that these collectors played in the spread of theoretical and practical knowledge, as well as plant material. Throughout the second half of the eighteenth century, the world of English horticulture became rapidly more sophisticated. The introduction of Linnaeus’s binomial system, furthermore, simplified the language of botany, making it far more accessible. And the royal garden at Kew, under the control of Sir Joseph Banks, emerged as an international centre of plant exchange and acclimatization. The appearance in London of new, highly successful plant nurseries was the most obvious legacy of the previous, pioneering generation of botanical and horticultural patrons, who trained their owners. The now flourishing Apothecaries’ Garden at Chelsea also benefitted from their influence, and the Sherards were instrumental in restoring the Oxford University Physic Garden, after years of neglect.

Calcutta Botanic Garden was founded in 1786 to acclimatise economic plants, but it quickly became the main institutional base for scientific botany in colonial India. However, it had to make a new start in 1833 after the Garden superintendent, Nathaniel Wallich, distributed its herbarium to botanists in Europe. The thesis shows how the revival of the scientific project to investigate and catalogue the south Asian flora was the main priority for Wallich’s successors, but depended on successful negotiation with the government. The central theme of the thesis is the tension between scientists, intent on their research, and sponsors, who need to demonstrate practical outcomes. It breaks new ground by focussing on how these issues were debated and resolved within a particular colonial scientific institution. It argues that the Garden was able to attract the resources it needed for its scientific work by responding appropriately to government pressures: although its achievements in economic botany were limited, it successfully highlighted them, regularly citing the introduction of tea and cinchona; it reinforced its case by managing its site in ways that reassured the government. The thesis also adds to our understanding of centre-periphery relationships. It argues that the Garden’s role as an important nodal point in the global botanic network was key to achieving its objectives. It shows how the Garden was strengthened by its mutually supportive relationship with Kew Gardens, based on the close bonds that botanists formed with each other. The thesis concludes by showing how, despite the Garden’s achievements, the government gradually lost faith in the ability of botany to contribute to economic progress in India; in the twentieth century it increasingly turned to more specialist disciplines and institutions. The thesis therefore suggests that further studies of scientific institutions would enhance our understanding of how science continued to support and validate imperial rule.

Στα πλαίσια αυτής της μεταπτυχιακής εργασίας, πραγματοποιήθηκε η μελέτη των σημαντικότερων Βοτανικών Κήπων της Ελλάδας. Γίνεται επίσης εκτενής αναφορά στους σημαντικότερους Βοτανικούς Κήπους της Ευρώπης, του Kew, του Βερολίνου, της Μαδρίτης, του Βελιγραδίου και του Παλέρμο. Ο κύριος σκοπός για τον οποίο εκπονήθηκε η παρούσα μεταπτυχιακή εργασία είναι για να μελετηθεί ο Βοτανικός Κήπος του Πανεπιστημίου Πατρών, που δυστυχώς δεν έχει ακόμη αξιοποιηθεί και προορίζεται να αποτελέσει ένα πρότυπο Βοτανικό Κήπο στην Ελλάδα. Η όλη προσπάθεια βρίσκει δυσκολίες όσον αφορά τη στελέχωσή του και τον εξοπλισμό του. Με βάση τα προγενέστερα σχέδια (τοπογραφικά, αρχιτεκτονικά) του Βοτανικού Κήπου, που απεικονίζουν τη βασική διάταξη των αξόνων κυκλοφορίας του Κήπου, καθώς και των κτιριακών υποδομών και θερμοκηπίων, εκπονείται εκ νέου η αρχιτεκτονική μελέτη του χώρου και επίσης γίνονται προτάσεις καλύτερης αισθητικής και λειτουργικής αξιοποίησής του, αποσκοπώντας στην εκπλήρωση των στόχων, τους οποίους έχει θέσει η BGCI. Στον καινούριο τοπογραφικό χάρτη που έχει εκπονηθεί, απεικονίζονται οι διάφορες φυτικές ομάδες ως κατωτέρω και δίδονται κατάλογοι και εικόνες φυτών χαρακτηριστικών της “Ελληνικής Χλωρίδας” αλλά και άλλων καλλωπιστικών ή μη φυτών : 1. Φρύγανα, 2. Θερόφυτα, 3. Ιστορικά φυτά, 4. Υδροχαρή φυτά , 5. Φυλλοβόλα δέντρα, 6. Μακκία βλάστηση, 7. Κωνοφόρα δέντρα, 8. Εργαστηριακά φυτά – Φυτώριο, 9. Καλλωπιστικά βολβώδη φυτά, 10. Αυτοφυή βολβώδη φυτά, 11. Παχύφυτα, 12. Υψηλή Μακκία, 13. Αρωματικά φυτά , 14. Φαρμακευτικά φυτά, 15. Θαμνώνες, 16. Ενδημικά φυτά, 17. Βραχόκηπος, 18. Χλωροτάπητας, 19. Ξενικά είδη, 20. Ενδημικά βολβώδη, 21. Ενδημικά σερπεντινικά, 22. Φαρμακευτικά θαμνίσκοι, 23. Κινδυνεύοντα, απειλούμενα & σπάνια είδη. Βέβαια, ένας από τους κύριους στόχους αυτής της προσπάθειας είναι η προστασία της βιοποικιλότητας της τόσο πλούσιας και σπάνιας Ελληνικής Χλωρίδας. Με αυτή τη μελέτη για το Βοτανικό Κήπο του Πανεπιστημίου Πατρών αναμένεται να δοθεί μεγαλύτερο ενδιαφέρον και ίσως είναι μια καλή αρχή ώστε οι αρμόδιοι φορείς να κάνουν πραγματικότητα τη δημιουργία του, που θα είναι σημαντική όχι μόνο για το Πανεπιστήμιο, αλλά και για την πόλη των Πατρών γενικότερα. / In the terms of this essay a study on the most important Botanical Gardens of Greece has been made. Reference is also made to a thorough report on the most important Botanical gardens of Europe, Kew, Berlin, Madrid ,Belgrade and Palermo. In the second part of this essay the Botanical garden of the University of Patra is being studied,which unfortunately has not yet been developed but it's being destined to become an template model of the Botanical garden in Greece. the whole attempt faces difficulties due to shortage of personnel and equipment. based on the anterior plans (topografic and architectural)for the Botanical garden, which depicts the basic arrangement of the axial circulation of the garden, as well as the contractual foundations and greenhouses, a new architectural study of the ground is being elaborated and additionally new suggestions are made for better aesthetic functional results, aiming at the fulfillment of the goals that the BGCI has set. In the new topographic map that has been elaborated, the following catalogue and plant groups are shown as characteristic Greek floral: 1.Firewood, 2. therofytes, 3. historical plants, 4. aquatic plants, 5. deciduous trees 6. clerophyllous evergreen woodland, 7.coniferous trees, 8. laboratory plants-nursary garden, 9.decorative bulbous plants, 10. selfgrowing bulbous plants, 11. succulents, 12 sclerophyllous evergreen woodland, 13. odouriferous plants, 14.pharmaceutical plants, 15. bushes, 16. endemic plants, 17. rockgarden 18. green carpet, 19. foreign kind plants, 20. endemic bulbous plants, 21. endemic serpedenic, 22. pharmaceutical bushes, 23. endangered & rare specimens. Of course the primary goal of this effort is the protection of the biodiversity of the very rich and rare Greek flora. With this research on the Botanical Garden of the University of Patras a greater interest is expected, while is a good start in order for the competent and relevant carriers to materialize its creation, which will be vital not only for the University but for the city of Patras in general.