Ferdinand von Mueller

PARIS UNIVERSAL EXHIBITION.

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The letterheaded notepaper also includes the following details: 'To Open April 1st. 1867 | Commissioners for the Colony of Victoria: | Sir Redmond Barry, Knt., President. | Le Comte de Castelnau. | Hon. George Harker. | Hon. G.F. Verdon. | Hon. J.F. Sullivan. | Sir James Palmer, Knt. | Hon. C.J. Jenner. M.L.C. | Hon. Wm. Degraves, M.L.C. | Sir Francis Murphy, Knt. | S.H. Bindon, Esq., M.L.A. | J.C. Riddell, Esq., M.L.A. | J.T. Smith, Esq., M.L.A. | Edward Cope, Esq., M.L.A. | Rev. J.J. Bleasdale, D.D. | Dr. Thomas Black. | Ferdinand Mueller, Esq., F.R.S. | Professor McCoy | Phipps Turnbull, Esq. | Charles E. Bright, Esq. | T.J. Sumner, Esq. | Robert McDougall, Esq. | J.G.Knight, Secretary'.

The Paris exhibition followed soon after the Intercolonial Exhibition of Australasia, Melbourne, 1866-7.

Offices of the Royal Commission,

64 Elizabeth Street,

Melbourne 9. Septemb. 1866

Confidential

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MS annotation: 'Ansd Nov. 19th'. Letter not found.

Dear Dr Hooker.

By this mail probably a request will be conveyed to you, emanating from the President of the intercolonial and French Exhibition Commission, desiring a loan of Victorian wood-specimens from Kew for the Paris Exhibition. Sir R. Barry stated that the N.S. Wales Commissioner in 1862 had left his (much less valuable) collection at Kew with an understanding, that if other Exhibitions occurred in Europe the specimens should be rendered again temporar[e]ly available. Though no such condition was coupled with our gift, the Commissioners rest thereon a footing of a similar claim, and all I could do in the presence of the celebrated Comte de Castelnau and as a Chevalier of the Legion of honor was to point out that the temporary transmission of such specimens irrespective of the great inconvenience arising at Kew-Museum would involve considerable expense. The Commissioners, learning from me that to meet such unforeseen outlays no fund would be available to you in your Department voted at once the sum of fifty pounds Sterling for the purpose. Here the matter must rest as far as I am concerned. But I owe it to you to point out that this request did not arise from me and that I should have been opposed to it, were it not for a position of delicacy I hold. As it is I did not vote

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Hooker asked for, and received, the permission of the Office of Works to lend the specimens to the Paris Exhibition, 'under the same conditions as your lordship has sanctioned a similar loan to the Commisrs for Natal and N.S. Wales, viz. — that all expenses of removal are borne by the Commissioners, & any damages be made good by them' (J. Hooker to Lord Elgin, 13 November 1866 (draft); Office of Works to Hooker, 15 November 1866, RBG Kew, Archives, Misc. reports 7.7: Victoria. Forest &c, 1862-1901, ff. 269, 270 respectively). The catalogue of the Victorian exhibits includes a note to the exhibit of Specimens of Colonial Timber: '(Presented to the Jardin des Plantes by the Royal Commissioners of Victoria, with the exception of forty-five specimens belonging to the Museum at Kew)' (Royal Commissioners for Victoria, 1867, p. 12).