ABSTRACT
As he looked back on his life Banks was quite sensible of the fact that his travels had ‘made’ his life. He wrote the following in 1813 to William Jackson Hooker, whom he was advising to undertake a journey to Java:2
On his return from Iceland Banks lived ‘in no particular station’ until his election to the presidency of the Royal Society in 1778.3 For a man in Banks’s position, a landowner with Tory sympathies, a parliamentary seat would have been the natural course. All his immediate forebears had been MPs but his biographers stress that he was not interested in politics, refusing to stand for parliament.4 Banks never sought public o‹ce though he certainly used his position to deal with politicians in matters he held dear, managing to remain above party politics. ‘I have never entered the doors of the house of Commons’ he wrote to Benjamin Franklin and so ‘I have escaped a million of unpleasant hours & preserved no small proportion of Friends of both parties’.5 Banks had many friends among the major politicians of his age, particularly Charles Jenkinson, Lord Hawkesbury (Earl of Liverpool from 1796), his son Robert Banks Jenkinson, Lord Hawkesbury, and Earl Bathurst.6 The latter two would receive correspondence dealing with Iceland. Still he found much with which to occupy himself. In February 1773 he went with his
friend Charles Greville7 to Holland. In the Hague he used the opportunity to meet with Dutch whaling captains familiar with the Greenland waters to gain information for his
1 Islandske Maaneds-Tidender, Hrappsey, Iceland, 1774. 2 Chambers, Scientific Correspondence of Sir Joseph Banks, II, p. 5. 3 Gascoigne, Science in the Service of Empire, p. 48. 4 Carter, Sir Joseph Banks, pp. 132, 147. 5 Chambers, Scientific Correspondence of Sir Joseph Banks, II, p. 5. 6On this aspect of Banks see Gascoigne, Science in the Service of Empire, passim. 7 Charles Francis Greville (1749-1809), FRS. An antiquarian and collector, especially interested in minerals
thinking of joining Phipps on this voyage, as he had to Labrador and Newfoundland, and there were rumours that he was even going on another Pacic voyage.2 But the visit to Holland was the last journey abroad for this intrepid traveller.3 Instead he turned to exploring his own country. During the summer of 1773 Banks went to Wales accompanied by Solander, Dr John
Lightfoot (1735-88) the botanist and Dr Charles Blagden (1748-1820),4 a physician trained at the University of Edinburgh who would become one of Banks’s closest friends. A veteran of climbing Hekla, Banks now climbed the highest peak in Wales, Snowdon. At the end of July 1774 the Resolution returned. Banks probably greeted this with
mixed feelings. He must have been disappointed at not participating in this voyage. Banks’s biographers agree that he had ‘behaved most foolishly’, missing out on this remarkable voyage through his own arrogance and a t of pique.5 But Banks and Cook (the dispute after all had been with the Navy Board) had remained on friendly terms. Solander, who met Cook shortly after his return, informed Banks that Cook had ‘expressed himself in the most friendly manner towards you, that could be; he said: nothing could have added to the satisfaction he has had, in making this tour but having had your company’.6 Banks was subsequently involved in supervising the sorting of the natural history specimens of the Resolution voyage and the planning of Cook’s last voyage, as well as overseeing the publication of the accounts of the two preceding voyages.7 On board the Resolution was Omai8 from Tahiti, the rst visitor to England from the Pacic islands. He was promptly handed over to Banks, becoming ‘the darling of social London’. It turned out that Banks and James Roberts had not lost their command of the Tahitian language and could communicate with him.9 Banks’s reputation was continually growing. As already mentioned he had become a
close friend of George III, who in 1773 appointed Banks as his special advisor or uno‹cial director to the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, which included supervising all matters regarding Kew, botany and agriculture.10 Under his guidance Kew became the major
1 This was sponsored by the Royal Society and the Admiralty. Phipps would sail with two ships, the Racehorse with a complement of 90 men and the Carcass with 80, not counting the o‚cers. Two masters of Greenland ships were hired as pilots. See Weld, A History of the Royal Society, II, pp. 70-73. Fifteen-year old Horatio Nelson took part in the expedition. Phipps was the „rst European to describe a polar bear. He wrote an account of this expedition, A Voyage towards the North Pole undertaken by His Majesty’s Command, 1773, „rst published in 1774. See van Strien, ‘Banks, Holland Journal’, p. 179.
