Cabinet 13 - London Legacy
Sir James Edward Smith, first President of the Linnean Society of London, was a voluminous correspondent. This first portion of his collection comprises over 3000 letters, with correspondents including Robert Brown, Sir Humphry Davy, Charles Lyell, and James Sowerby. Dr Averil Margaret Lysaght was a New Zealand scholar based in London, who published works on Sir Joseph Banks, particularly his Newfoundland and Endeavour journals, and on bird illustration.
Warren R. Dawson, Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library of the Linnean Society of London. Part I. The Smith Papers. London: Printed for the Linnean Society, 1934. Private Collection
In 1988, the Linnean Society of London celebrated its bicentenary history with this publication by William T. Stearn, President of the Linnean Society between 1979 and 1982. Stearn utilized and updated Andrew Gage's first history of the Society, which was published in 1934. In 1883, when Dr Thomas Hocken became a Fellow of the Linnean Society of London, the President was Sir John Lubbock. Hocken was nominated by Augustus Petherick (a book collector), Robert McLachlan (an entomologist), and Benjamin D. Jackson, botanical secretary from 1880 to 1902.
Andrew Thomas Gage and William Thomas Stearn, A Bicentenary History of The Linnean Society of London. London: Academic Press, for the Linnean Society of London, 1988. Science QH 1 G325
The contents pages offer the scope and variety of papers published in the Transactions. New Zealand based Walter Buller, Dr T. M. Hocken, Eliza A. Campbell, Thomas Kirk, Lucy B. Moore, Thomas Cheeseman, Charles Chilton, Leonard Cockayne, George M. Thomson, L. E. Richdale, H. H. Allan, Kathgleen Curtis, G. O. K. Sainsbury, Lucy M. Smith, Robin J. Tillyard, Walter R. B. Oliver and Alexander H. Turnbull were all Fellows of the Linnean Society of London. Some or all were subscribers to this prestigious publication.
Transactions of the Linnean Society, Vol. III. London: Printed by J. Davis, 1797. DeB Ec 1791 T
The Roll Book records the signatures of the first members of the Linnean Society of London, 1788, including the seven founding members. Others include Thomas Martyn, Professor of Botany at Cambridge, and William Curtis, the Quaker botanist and entomologist.