[CHAPTER XI.]
THE BOTANICAL GARDENS AND HERBARIUM.
“The spleen is seldom felt where Flora reigns.”
In the year 1711 there was a Lecturership of Botany in connection with the Medical School of Trinity College, and there was apparently a “Physic Garden” near the School, extending from the Anatomy House towards Nassau Street, as seen on Rocque’s Map (ante, [p. 187]). Dr. Nicholson was the first Lecturer; he published a pamphlet of some 40 pages, entitled Methodus plantarum, in horto medico collegii Dublinensis, jamjam disponendarum, Dublini, 1712, which the writer has not seen. The garden could not have been on a very large scale, but it would appear to have supplied the needs of the School for over fifty years, for it is not until during the Lecturership of Edward Hill that we find that the garden was transferred to the neighbourhood of Harold’s Cross, where it was in part the private property of the Lecturer on Botany, but assisted by a grant in aid from the College. Dr. Stubbs[172] tells us that “in 1801 a Curator was appointed, and that in March, 1805, his salary was fixed at £130 yearly, out of which he was to employ two labourers all the year round, and two additional labourers from March to December.” Mr. Hill retired from the Lecturership in 1800, which, on the passing of the Act 25 George III. (1785), “for establishing a complete School of Physic in Ireland,” had been made into a University Professorship. There was some difference of opinion between Hill and the College authorities as to the value of the plants and houses, and in the College accounts for 1803 there occurs the following entry:—“Dr. Hill, allowed him by the award of the arbitrators, to whom the cause between the College and him concerning the Botany Garden was referred, £618 19s. 8d.”
The two last decades of the last century were noteworthy, from a botanical point of view, for the immense interest that was taken in Great Britain and Ireland about the cultivation of exotic plants; the latter voyages of Captain Cook, and those of Captain Vancouver, had, through the zeal of Banks, Solander, and Menzies—to mention only a trio of the worthies of that period—been the means of bringing to the Kew Gardens many most interesting plants; the publication by Aiton of his Hortus Kewensis, a catalogue of the plants cultivated in the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, and of Francis Bauer’s Delineations of Exotic Plants cultivated in the same gardens, had given a fresh impetus to their study, and from about this date the period of the scientific Botanic Garden may be said to date, and the day of the “Physic Garden” to end.
The subject of having a Botanical Garden in Dublin began to be debated about 1789, and in 1790 the Irish House of Commons voted a sum of £300 to the Dublin Society “in aid of the cost of providing a Botanic Garden;” this Society, which took an active interest in everything tending to promote the welfare of the country, at once appointed a Committee, consisting of Drs. Perceval, Hill, and Wade, to consider the question. Dr. Perceval had just retired from the Secretaryship of the Royal Irish Academy. Dr. Hill was the Dublin University Professor of Botany. Dr. Wade was the Lecturer on Botany to the Dublin Society, and the author of the first published catalogue of Dublin plants, and of Plantæ rariores in Hibernia inventæ. On the report of this Committee, the Royal Dublin Society resolved that letters should be written to the University of Dublin and the College of Physicians requesting their advice and assistance, and hoping that they would approve of the measure and have money granted towards the scheme. This letter was sent in June, 1791, and after the long vacation the Board of Trinity replied through their Registrar as follows:—“That it had been of a long time the anxious wish of the Board of Trinity College to co-operate in any scheme by which a Botanic Garden may be established on the most useful principles; that for this purpose they had allocated an annual sum at present exceeding £100, and in order to expedite the plan they had appointed a Select Committee of the Senior Fellows, who were ready at the most convenient time to meet any deputation from the Dublin Society and the College of Physicians, and to report their proceedings to the Board.” At this time the College of Physicians had not replied to the invitation of the Dublin Society; but on December 8th, 1791, they also intimated that they had appointed a Select Committee, consisting of Sir W. G. Newcomen, Bart., Andrew Caldwell, and Patrick Bride, to consider the subject.
What negotiations may have taken place during 1792 are not known, but we find that in 1793 a Bill was brought in to the House of Commons, by the Right Hon. the Secretary of State, “to direct the application of certain sums of money heretofore granted towards providing and maintaining a Botanic Garden to the Dublin Society, and for the appointment of Trustees for that purpose;” whereupon the Provost and Board of Senior Fellows presented the following petition:—