"O, to turn my heel on the pole,
and rotate 360 degrees in a second."
These are the words of Joseph Banks, 18th century Royal Society President
and explorer on the Endeavour with James Cook.
Hi, I'm Anna Marie Roos, I'm at the Royal Society
and I'm also editor of Notes and Records, the Royal Society journal for the history of science.
In December 2019 we're doing a special issue on Joseph Banks.
Banks inherited vast lands in Lincolnshire, which allowed him to do whatever he wanted to do with his life.
He had a tremendous interest from a young age in botany
and he became a paid naturalist on James Cook's voyage to the South Seas.
He also brought back thirty thousand plant specimens and one thousand zoological specimens
with the help of his friend Daniel Solander.
So Simon, does this portrait really represent the reality of Joseph Banks?
Well this is one reality of Joseph Banks.
So, it's a portrait that was made when he was President of the Royal Society,
and he'd just been awarded the Order of the Bath, which is the red sash that he's wearing.
And it's a picture made to show him as an authority, to project his power as a centre of science.
It's not the only reality of Banks, he had many other guises as a family man, as a botanist, an explorer
all kinds of things.
But it's not just him, there are lots of other people around him.
If you imagine all the people who aren't in this picture,
there were men and women who contributed to what he was doing
that we don't necessarily know about.
So Hannah, you looked at some of these other networks that were really important to Banks and the Royal Society,
but there's sort of more hidden, Banks isn't necessarily the centre of all of them is he?
Absolutely.
So, Banks was surrounded by a whole host of people.
These were collaborators, draughtsmen, artists, translators, assistants, and even family members.
And so although we see Banks as a kind of expert statesman here,
I think what we need to think about is all the people who contributed to his scientific projects.
Banks was perhaps less of an originator of all his scientific projects,
and more of an expert facilitator working with these communities.
So there's really much more of an interplay between the supposed centre and the periphery
than we thought before.
Absolutely.
So Hannah, who was Charles Blagden and what was his relationship to Banks? And...
I'm really curious what the connection was of Blagden to this wonderful little thing here.
Oh wow!
Are these tea leaves?
Yes they are.
So Charles Blagden was secretary and assistant to Joseph Banks,
first a sort of personal assistant and then he became secretary to the Royal Society in 1784.
And Blagden didn't come from a very, kind of, wealthy background,
and so one of the ways he would tried to sort of socially climb, I guess, and get ahead in life,
was by appealing to Banks as his patron.
And one of the ways he went about this was by sharing news
about natural philosophy, about botany, and he also even provided specimens to Banks.
So the example we have here are these tea leaves, which Blagden would have possibly sent on to Banks
in order to win his favour.
Oh I see, so it was sort of 'you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours'.
Yes, exactly.
So one of Banks's projects was to transplant tea from China to India,
so yes this is very much, kind of, playing into Banks's scientific agenda.
So Hannah, could you tell me a little bit more about the role of women in Banks's network?
We have for instance this letter from Lady Elizabeth Grey written in the 1780s.
Yes, so aristocratic women were really important as consumers and communicators
of scientific knowledge at the end of the 18th century.
And so, this letter from Lady Elizabeth Grey is sent to Charles Blagden
and it really shows how Lady Elizabeth Grey was, kind of, fascinated by the latest scientific knowledge.
There's a really interesting line in the letter which says
"So long as I breath this air, pure or impure, I shall retain a thirst for information"
which really highlights how these women were really passionate about scientific knowledge.
So Simon, what surprised you most about Banks when you studied him?
Well Banks is famous as the naturalist on Captain Cook's first voyage of exploration,
and as a botanist, and as president of the Royal Society,
but he was also a landowner.
So, he was very wealthy, he had big estates in Derbyshire and Lincolnshire in particular,
and he used those estates as places to do experimental researches in all kinds of activities.
He's doing experiments on livestock, on canal building, on engineering, on agricultural chemistry,
there are spinning competitions going on with all the villagers who are his tenants,
he's involved with the local jail, all kinds of activities.
Being a kind of enlightened estate manager.
He also certainly understood hospitality, I heard that Banks was quite a fisherman.
He was, so he used to take these huge parties of people on fishing expeditions.
They didn't catch a few fish, they caught fish by the tonne,
and they would record this in books that commemorated their voyages.
One of the things that Banks was famous for was being extravagant,
doing things on a very dramatic scale.
Another thing that Banks does a lot of is dining.
Eating, you know.
So, the Royal Society has a dining club and Banks held botanical breakfasts in Soho Square.
He's doing this all the time, and he had gout as a result.
I would imagine.
So Banks is doing this partly recreational, but it's also to build connections
and cultivate relationships with people.
That was a very important part of science at the time.
Networking and patronage were key.
It's another meaning of scientific fellowship.
Exactly, exactly, so that you could share ideas and talk,
and that was how it was done.
