The creation and expansion of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew : Its role in building the British Empire (Part One)

摘要

The Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, on the right bank of the River Thames to the west of London, were inscribed in the World Heritage List in 2003. They had their origins in an herb garden established in 1759 by Princess Augusta. Even before this, the area of Kew and Richmond, known for its fresh air and lovely rural scenery, had become a favorite retreat and resort for members of the royal family seeking a respite from central London. Kew Palace, rebuilt in 1731, was a manifestation of this. The gardens for the royal family were modified by the superb architects William Chambers and "Capability" Brown in an English style by the incorporation of oriental elements and integration of the surrounding landscape into the Baroque style of garden. Later, under the patronage of the plant‑loving King George III, the wealthy aristocrat Joseph Banks employed a plant‑collecting/plant hunting network provided by expanding British trade and exploration throughout the world to assemble a　collection of exotic and beautiful flowers and plants never seen before in England, transplanting them or cultivating them in greenhouses for display, and in the process making the Kew Botanic Gardens famous. After Banks's death the gardens went into a period of decline, but in 1840 the majority of the estate was transferred to state ownership, and under the directorship of William Hooker (1785-1865) the gardens underwent an innovative expansion, including the construction of massive greenhouses to display tropical and subtropical plants collected from all over the globe. While attention was given to the gardens as a venue for recreation for the citizenry, they also became a center for systematic botany research, especially in the classification and recording of specimens of rare plant species collected throughout the world utilizing the extensive military, commercial, and political networks of the British Empire. Kew also became the nucleus of a network of gardens designed to cultivate useful plants for transplantation to Britain's colonial holdings in the tropics. It was Hooker who established the template for the present Kew Royal Botanic Gardens, including his creation of the first Economic Botany Museum in the country. This paper, while focusing on the achievements of William Hooker, also investigates the relationship between changes in the siting of various facilities on the grounds and the overall development of the gardens from the time of their founding to their institutional maturity.