The correspondence of Ferdinand von Mueller: ¶ As President of the Royal Geographical Society, I venture to call your Grace's attention to the merits of two men of Science in Australia, who by their researches and public services, are, in my op...

Document information

Physical location:

National Archives, London, C0 309/86, Colonial Office, Victoria Despatches. 67.06.01

Preferred Citation:

Roderick Murchison to the Duke of Buckingham and Chandos, 1867-06-01. 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//letters/mentions/selected/M67-06-01-final.odt>, accessed June 9, 2026

MS annotated at top in unknown hands: '5475 Victoria | New S Wales | Honors. | Chief Clerk '. 'R. 4 June'. 'Acknd 10th June 1867'. The MS is also date marked: 'REGISTERED C.O. JUNE 4 1867'.

As President of the Royal Geographical Society, I venture to call your Grace's attention to the merits of two men of Science in Australia, who by their researches and public services, are, in my opinion, well worthy of receiving some honour of the Crown.

The first of these is Dr. Ferdinand Mueller, F.R.S., an eminent Botanist, who has for some years been at the head of the Botanical Garden of Melbourne. This gentleman made a remarkable journey across Northern or Tropical Australia, and described its vegetation with great ability. He has published five volumes on the Botany of Australia, entitled "Phytographia Australia,"

i.e. Fragmenta phytographiae australiae.

which work, and others, obtained for him the Fellowship of the Royal Society of London, and the warm encomiums of our first Botanists, including the late Sir William Hooker, and Dr. Hooker, the Superintendent of the Royal Gardens at Kew.

Dr. Mueller has received for these works numerous decorations from Foreign Sovereigns; and it would peculiarly gratify many influential persons in the Colony of Victoria, as well as all his scientific admirers in this country, if Your Grace would nominate him for the honour of Knighthood.

I understand that Dr. Mueller was upon Lord Carnarvon's list as a fit and proper person to receive such honour.

See Lucas (2013a) for a discussion of the efforts to gain a British honour for M; p. 21 and n. 71 discuss the nature of the list upon which M had been placed in 1864 in anticipation of an honours distribution to mark the marriage of the Prince of Wales, a distribution Queen Victoria did not sanction.

The other claimant is Mr. Arthur Todd Holroyd

Details not here included.