- Also known as
-
Sir Joseph Banks
-
primary name: Banks, Joseph
- Details
- individual; scientist/engineer; British; Male
- Life dates
- 1743-1820
- Address
- 32 Soho Square
- Biography
- Naturalist; Lincolnshire land owner, schooled at Eton; President of the Royal Society; Trustee of the British Museum. His collections and library were presented and bequeathed to the BM 1773-1818 and 1827. 1766, accompanied the expedition of Constantine Phipps to Labrador and Newfoundland; 1768-71 accompanied Captain Cook on the HMS Bark Endeavour, his first voyage to the Pacific; 1772 led a voyage of scientific exploration to Iceland.
Became George III's principal adviser on scientific matters, especially, from 1773, at the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. In 1778 aged 35 became President of the Royal Society and served in that office until his death in 1820, becoming the longest serving occupant. 1781 knighted; 1797, became Privy Councillor as a result of his growing role in advising the government on scientific matters, especially relating to the colonies. Archive at the Natural History Museum.
In Prints and Drawings Dept British Museum there is a group of 811 prints and drawings of natural history subjects from his collection, transferred, loose in portfolios and mounted in albums, from the British Library (then part of the British Museum) in 1914, reg nos 1914,0520.1 to 811. They are no longer kept together as a group and have mostly been incorporated into the main runs of prints and drawings, mainly by artist. The artists included Sydney Parkinson, John Cleveley, J F Miller, Capt P D'Auvergne, Sawrey Gilpin, Peter Paillou, N Dance, George Stubbs, George Edwards, John Webber and John Greenwood and many others. Some are still kept together in a portfolio of Natural History from Sir Joseph Banks' Collection. For a full description see, p.81 of P&D User's Guide.
- Bibliography
- DNB
Beaglehole (ed.), The Endeavour Journal of Sir Joseph Banks 1768-1771, Sydney 1963
A project is underway to publish his entire correspondence: see
Neil Chambers (ed), 'The Scientific Correspondence of Sir Joseph Banks, 1765-1820', 6 vols 2007
Rüdiger Joppien & Neil Chambers, in 'Libraries within the Library' ed. Giles Mandelbrote, 2009, pp.222-43
