William Jackson Hooker

Tinted lithograph in octagonal format, signature as title "W. J. Hooker"; artist's printed signature l. l. "T. H. Maguire 1851". Printed by M. & N. Hanhart. A fine, genial portrait of one of the leading botanists of the Victorian era.

Sir William Jackson Hooker (1785-1865) was born into a prominent Norwich family and was able to pursue his passion for botany his entire life, contributing greatly to the science of botany. After attending Norwich School, he made his first botanical expedition to Iceland in 1809. There was a fire on the boat coming back and he lost all his specimens. He wrote "Tour in Iceland" the same year. Over the next several years, he made similar trips to France, Switzerland and northern Italy. Thereafter, he married and settled in Halesworth, Suffolk, where he wrote books and articles, and built a herbarium, which was highly regarded among botanists worldwide. In 1820, he was made Regius professor of botany at Glasgow University. In 1821, his "Flora Scotica" was published. During his years in Scotland, he helped establish the Glasgow Botanic Gardens. In 1841, Hooker became the Director of the Royal Botanic Garden at Kew. During his tenure, he expanded the garden from 10 acres to 75 and the arboretum to 270 acres. Thomas Herbert Maguire (1821-1895) was a British artist, who studied lithography with Richard James Lane. He is best known for the portraits of scientists, primarily naturalists, for which he was commissioned by George Ransome, F. L. S. in connection with the founding of the Ipswich Museum. Ransome gave the portraits as gifts to subscribing members and gave the entire portfolio, which ultimately ran to 60 portraits, to especially important figures, most notably Prince Albert when he visited the museum in 1851. Maguire brought to portrait making an unusual capacity to capture a person's type and character. His portraits did not try glorify their subject but rather showed their individuality. The subject's renown depended on their accomplishments, which would have been well-known to the observers.