Sir Joseph Banks (1743 - 1820)
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Biography
Sources
Selected publications
Biography
studies at Eton and Harrow
1760 studies at Oxford University
1764 leaves Oxford for London
1766 - 1767 is part of an expedition to Labrador and Newfoundland
1768 - 1771 naturalist on Captain Cook's voyage around the world
1771 receives degree Doctor of civil law from Oxford
1773 named director of the Royal Botanic Garden at Kew
1777 collecting expedition to Iceland
Banks was an independently wealthy nature-nut who spent most of his time and money (which fortunately did not run out) funding biological enterprises (publications, expeditions, and the living and working expenses of many biologists). For instance, the famous voyage of the H.M.S. Bounty was a Banks-funded enterprise (to bring breadfruit trees back to England for cultivation attempts) and his choice of Capt. Bligh may have been his only bad choice of personnel.
He acquired the position of naturalist on Capt. Cook's voyage by personally funding the position, including eight (!) assistants and voluminous collecting equipment. Few important contemporary collecting forays can boast that level of logistical support. The year after his trip to Iceland, he became president of the Royal Society, and remained so until he died, limiting his activities thereafter to administration and funding.
Most of his botanical work was on phanerogams, and his publications were very few (basically limited to writing up the Cook collections). His one mycological contribution is the work below.
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Sources
Heinrich Dörfelt & Heike Heklau (1998) Die Geschichte der Mykologie
(Die Geschichte der Mykologie)
Duane Isley (1994) One Hundred and One Botanists
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Selected Publications
Sir Joseph BanksA short account of the cause of the disease in corn, called by farmers the blight, the mildew, and the rust
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