SIR JOSEPH DALTON HOOKER
1817—1911
By F. O. BOWER
His long life—childhood and education—travels—Geological work—Morphological Memoirs—administrative duties—systematic works—relations with Darwin—acceptance of Mutability of Species—his philosophical Essays—their influence in advancing Evolutionary Belief.
It is a difficult task to condense within suitable limits an appreciation of so long and strenuous a life as that of Sir Joseph Hooker. Naturally with age the bodily strength waned, but the vivid mind remained unimpaired to the end. He even continued his detailed observations till very shortly before his death in December, 1911. The list of his published works extends from 1837 to 1911, a record hardly to be equalled in any walk of intellectual life.
Sir Joseph Hooker was born at Halesworth, in Suffolk, in 1817. His father, Sir William Hooker, brought him to Glasgow as a child of four years of age, when he entered on his duties as Professor of Botany in 1821. The Professor established himself in Woodside Crescent, conveniently near to the Botanic Garden, then but recently established, but developing under his hands with wonderful rapidity. Doubtless his little son was familiar with it and its contents from childhood. He grew up in an atmosphere surcharged with the very science he was to do so much to advance. His father's home was the scene of manifold activities. It housed a rapidly growing herbarium and museum. It was there that the drawings were made to illustrate that amazing stream of descriptive works which Sir William was then producing. New species must have been almost daily
