Contributing Institution: UCLA Library Special Collections

Title: Sir Joseph Banks correspondence

Creator: Banks, Joseph, 1743-1820

Identifier/Call Number: Biomed.0286

Physical Description: 1 unknown (6 letters)

Date (inclusive): 1783 September 6-1814 May 30

Language of Material: English .

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UCLA Catalog Record ID: 5343921 

Collection of 6 autographed letters signed on miscellaneous topics including: 1. 1783 September 6: to E.A.J. Annisson thanking him for his gift to the Royal Society but also noting the resolution made some years ago regarding "not admitting any more members upon the foreign list till the number was reduced." -- 2. 1804 March 2: to Rev. Dr. Glasser thanking "Mons. Carnot, President of the National Institute of Paris for the liberation of Mr. Osbourne, member of the Royal Society." Banks also notes that "we are not in possession of any correct list as Prisoners of War." -- 3. 1807 April 7: to John Symmons, Esq. thanking him "for the gift of the monstrous Calculus...I have never seen anything like it in size from the bladder of a dog." -- 4. 1807 December 21: to an unidentified correspondent noting "I told you it is well at the club that the jewelers have set little value on the ...sent home from New...I am however not at all the more able to purchase them cheap....I am reduced to the necessity of Returning [sic] them to the Viscount of Islington." -- 5. 1808 December 16: to Sam Lysons discussing the post-mortem handling of the affairs of Philip Marmion and H. Hilery among others. -- 6. 181? May 30: a letter of introduction for Dawson Turner to J.J.H. La Billardière.

Botanist and naturalist, Sir Joseph Banks, FRS, was born into a wealthy land-owning family on February 12, 1743. He expressed a particular interest in botany at an early age and after inheriting his family's fortune in the 1760's, was free to fully engage in his passion. He accompanied James Cook aboard the H.M.S Endeavor on his first voyage to Tahiti in 1768. The specimens collected on this voyage accounted for approximately 110 new genera and 1300 new species. After this trip, he became actively involved in promoting the British colonization of Australia. Elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1766, he became president in 1778, a post he held until his death on June 19, 1820.

The Royal Society of London for the Improvement of Natural Knowledge, also known as the Royal Society, was founded in London in 1660. The Society began in the 1640's as a discussion group among natural philosophers. Its purpose was to investigate and support experiential science. The Society became the United Kingdom's national academy of science, supporting and facilitating the work and education of members of the scientific community throughout the UK and the Commonwealth.