Document information
Physical location:
RBG Kew, Kew correspondence, Australia, Mueller, 1871-81, ff. 100-1. 73.07.15
Plant names
-
Cinchona
Search for
Cinchona
in -
Cycas
Search for
Cycas
in -
Dicksonia
Search for
Dicksonia
in -
Pelargonium
Search for
Pelargonium
in -
Petunia
Search for
Petunia
in -
Verbena
Search for
Verbena
in
Preferred Citation:
Ferdinand von Mueller to Joseph Hooker, 1873-07-15. R.W. Home, Thomas A. Darragh, A.M. Lucas, Sara Maroske, D.M. Sinkora, J.H. Voigt and Monika Wells (eds), Correspondence of Ferdinand von Mueller, <https://vmcp.rbg.vic.gov.au/id/73-07-15>, accessed September 11, 2025
Melbourne
15/7/73
Private
I write a few private lines, dear Dr Hooker, after my fuller official letter has been
despatched to you.
Capt. Stakepool of the Shannon brings several Extra
stems, which I place as a private gift at your disposal. You will likely take them
all into your hothouses, as more than one may fail to thrive again. I have written
to Mr Theodore Müller,
to whom you showed some kindness, when he passed through England,
and who has recently been appointed to the venerable Prof Reichenbach, sen. (aged
now 83) as Secretary in the Museum, that he might ask you for one of the
stems, should he desire it for Reichenbachs Conservatory at the Dresden bot. Garden,
or for his Museum of Natural History. You may wish perhaps also to present one to
Edinburgh, or to Oxford or Cambridge. But I leave that entirely to your discretion,
as I have secured them at my own cost. But I may add, that they are three or four
times more expensive than
stems.
1
M to J. Hooker, 14 July 1873 (in this edition as 73-07-14b).
Cycas
Search for Cycas
in
2
Letter not found.
3
See J. Hooker to M, 9 July 1869.
Cycas
Search for Cycas
in
Dicksonia
Search for Dicksonia
in
4
they are ... stems is marked with a large cross in the margin.
I write this from an Hotel,
where I have sought refuge, after being driven within a months notice out of my creation
after 21 years domicile in the bot. Garden. The latter ceases to be a scientific institution,
and is merged into Gov. House Garden & Park, the new Viceregal Palais being under
process of being built close to it.
5
Morton's Hotel, Milswyn Street, South Yarra, Vic.
A young Sydney nurseryman, who can lay no claim to scientific knowledge whatever,
has taken my place under the name of Curator and stands
not
under me. Indeed he is an independent administrator under the Minister, a near relative
of whom he is.
What the fate of the rare plants will be I can foresee, when I hear that this young
person, who never in his life heard even the names of a multitude of plants accumulated
by me, called my select nurseryplants, containing the rarest young trees, Tea,
s, the West Australian plants (at the latter of which
your
mind would delight) "
rubbish
" when he first came to the Garden. This I learnt accidentally, as I shall never set
my foot again in the garden unless as Director, nor do I allow any of the Garden employees
to communicate with me
6
William Guilfoyle. For M’s earlier opinion of Guilfoyle, see M to R. Kippist, 18 March 1869, and the dedication of Guilfoylia in B73.04.02, p. 34.
7
Elsewhere M was more explicit, asserting that Guilfoyle was a cousin of James Casey's
wife; see M to J. Haast, 1 April 1874 and M to W. B. Clarke, 19 August 1876. Casey was part-owner of the sugar mill at Cudjen, NSW and in this capacity had extensive
business dealing with the Guilfoyle family who had a large sugar plantation there;
see R. Pescott (1974), p. 57.
Cinchona
Search for Cinchona
in
Under such circumstances I would not advise you to send any valuable plants at present
to the bot. Garden.
My absolute want of private means has forced me against my inclination to continue
the position of Gov Botanist. But imagine such an Officer without his control over
the bot. Garden. But that is not the worst. The whole vote (beyond my modest salary
and now additional House rent) is £300 (three hund £) while the observatory gets £3000.
Out of these 300 have even to come the 100 for Bentham, should he require the sum
by June 1874. To my modest application for addition to that sum I got yesterday a
curt and blunt refusal from the Prime Minister.
But that is not the worst. I do not expect, that even my Office will be continued
on the estimates next year, for the following obvious reasons
8
See M to J. Francis, 10 July 1873 and W. Odgers to M, 14 July 1873.
It will be impossible for me to do justice to the duties of Gov. Botanist without
the machinery and appliances, which I created for the Office at the bot. Garden; hence
I shall be likely sent adrift as a useless individual, because everybody will come
to me as if I commanded yet over my former resources, just like every Clergyman, Schoolmaster,
trustee of Cemetery or Park, came to me, as if nothing had happened, when I was in
Oct last reduced from 10 Gardeners to 3 (of course the 6 or 7 Gardeners withdrawn
from me, were immediately sent back to the Garden, after I was driven out) 2,
the Minister of course never visits my Department. His banking merchant squatting
and family interests take up any spare time, which he has left after attending to
the most important duties of his Office. Yet he is not unlikely to allow himself to
be misled even on professional matters of mine by traducers. 3, you must not forget
that I am a Teutonian by birth, altho' I have spent more years in her Majestys Australian
possessions as a naturalized subject than in my native country. 4, the revenue may
any moment fall short, and then I shall be one of the first, who is struck from the
list. 5, I have to contend more with the silly talk of supposed friends here than
with the small clique of my adversaries. One will say O! you can go elsewhere, never
minding that even the works on Austr plants are incompleted, that I must leave the
main part of the collection and library behind, and that I am too old to go again
for a dozen years in the saddle to study the vegetation of an other country or reestablish
a new Department, even if an other state could be induced to afford the necessary
large means. An other says simply though I might have no bread, I had fame (to live
on) An other comes after I am deprived of my Directorship to gratulate me to my promotion,
that is to say, the proposition to become an intruder on the University and an interloper
on the Professors and Lecturers there, even if my constantly reccurent bronchial catarrhs
allowed me to lecture regularly. An other lot of people will say, that I ought to
be grateful and rejoyce to be
relieved
of drugery
and now to devote my whole time to science. They don't mind at all that the Government
or rather the Prime Minister refused me a Pension,
that I have still all the responsibility of Office without proper means of working,
that my professional honor and pride is wounded. But then they exclaim, "you got an
increase" as if the miserable sum, which they added to a salary (since 21 years much
smaller than that of any of my compeers and much more heavily taxed) represented anything
else than House rent. The Museum is left me, but as since 14 years no additions are
made to it, though I often applied for it, I cannot work there. It is merely an overcrowded
store room for plants. Besides it cannot be heated and is therefore too cold for me
in winter. I could not rent a House, simply as I have no means to furnish it, and
cannot be responsible for a years rent, when my position may under the civil service
act be abolished
any day
, when Parliament is not sitting. What will be my fate then? I get one month salary
for each years service at the rate of the last 3 years salary. Therefore about one
thousand £ once for ever! If I resign I get nothing. A widow is also entitled to nothing.
I might claim 1/60 for each years service as pension in utterly ruined health, but
it would be an uncertainty, as at any moment I might be called upon to perform
other
duties, such as physical incabability may still admit of. That is
my
fate after 26 years generous & disinterested service to Austr and that arises mainly
from the persecution and misrepresentation of 2 or 3 of Edw Wilsons and M'Kinnons
men!
9
M did not number the first of his 'reasons'.
10
drudgery?
11
M requested a pension in his letter to J. Francis, 18 June 1873; Francis did not respond
to the request.
12
The page ends here without valediction. The intended sequence of the remainder of
the transcription, all marginalia, is conjecture.
Your colleague as C.B., Dr MacKinnon is Prof of Milit Surgery in England.
13
J. Hooker was appointed CB in 1869; William Alexander MacKinnon in 1873 was Assistant
Professor of Military Surgery, Army Medical School, Netley.
Could you as a honored Colleague have an interview with him without showing him this
letter.
No one could have done more with the
means
at my command and no family man so much
I should like that Dr Masters is privately made acquainted with the generality of
the changes here
The greater part of my private library is packed up in a [stableHouse]
I have nothing done to deserve this degredation and persecution! Am not even recording
my politic vote
and never give a politic opinion.
Of course
s, Pelargon,
.
s &c, of which I had many, are now the order of the day.
Verbena
Search for Verbena
in
14
Pelargonium
Search for Pelargonium
in
Petunia
Search for Petunia
in
15
Apparently in response to this letter, Hooker wrote to Henry Barkly that 'Poor Mueller
writes me most disconsolate letters; but from all I hear he is well out of a most
worrying post, and leisure to work at science pure and simple, on a very excellent salary, and (for
a Colony) a satisfactory establishment for the provision of books and specimens. However
the poor fellow is not content, and I should not wonder if he went out of his mind,
if all I hear from his friends is true. I do wish that I could calm him; but he wont
be comforted' (J. Hooker to H. Barkly, 14 October 1873, RBG Kew, archives, Letters
from Joseph Hooker vol. 1, Ada-Bar, ff. 210-12 (MS is a typescript copy of unknown
provenance).