Private
Melbourne bot Garden
16/6/73
This time, dear Dr Hooker, I write to you under entirely changed departmental circumstances and this will be the last letter, which you will ever get from me out of the bot Garden. The Ministry has suddenly abolished the Directorship of the bot. garden, and merged the Garden (as a pleasure garden only or mainly) into the Gov. House reserve, very closely adjoining, where the new Gov House is under the process of building. The Domain & Garden are to be placed with other garden and parkland under the administration of a Gardener merely. The position of Gov. Botanist I shall hold honoris causa and retire otherwise into private life, and thus I hope, while retaining as an honorary officer the control over my Museum collections and Library, to continue in tranquillity my researches on the plants of Australia for Bentham's and my own works.
I have fought manfully but almost single-handed here against ignorance, envy and baseness; but I have not set a precedent which by your adversaries or by anyone elsewhere could be used against yourself or other great colleagues. My Department is thus entirely broke up, and this chiefly through two or three men in the employ of Mess Edw Wilson, MacKinnon and Spowers, who, while they roll in wealth in Europe, do not care what ruin their employees inflict on any one here. No doubt a very enveyable triumph of the Proprietors of the Argus and Australasian! How very differently stood the press of England, and the generality of the people there to you!1 I hope you and Dr Masters will not allow my case to be misrepresented in English papers, not so much for my sake, poor and utterly unprovided as I am, but for the sake of the dignity of our positions, from which we may recede in honor and even in ruin, but which we should maintain against disgrace. I felt for years past, that it was a great mistake of mine, to have accepted from Mr La Trobe the position in 1852. I had then some means sufficient to purchase a sheep station. I had then travelled already for 5 years in Australia and the life with all its hopes was then still before me. I might as Squatter been one one of the wealthiest men in Australia, and had a florishing family around me, might have had my Museum, Laboratory, literary arrangments, Library &c on my squatting station and certainly would have lived peacefully for longer, than I can ever now, while I would in private life of such kind have done far more for science, than ever fell to my share with the poor grants given to my institution, which latterly sunk utterly into starvation.
I had to sell off and sacrifice within the last few years all the rest of my private property to keep the Department going, while the most exorbitant demands were made on me. You are aware that in Oct last I was reduced from 10 Gardeners to 3 (three!) yet even these three were not allowed to do the garden work, but had mainly to grow and pack plants for all the public institutions, as Clergymen, Schoolmasters, Trustees of Parks, Cemeteries &c &c all came to me and my 3 gardeners just as if nothing had happened; — and when meanwhile not even the weeds could be kept down, they (the Clergymen &c) gave me no support that was of the slightest use to me, while under Maccullochs tyrannical Civil Service Regulations my hands were tied, and I could not defend myself. Now late in life I feel myself trapped. I cannot repurchase the many lost years, which I spent in good faith in the service. This last month now of my Directorship a person, who knows nothing of plants beyond having picked up a few names in the Garden or nurseries, dictates to me, as he endeavoured to do for years, what to supply, after through my toil knowledge, not through purchases, the hundreds of thousands of plants are raised in my nurseries. In all this deep misery and humiliation I have one consolation. I have not done one single selfish thing as a public officer, nor a single act, which could not see the daylight. That conscience no one can take from me! —
Without the slightest knowledge of myself a plan had been matured that I should lecture on the University, where already as amply is provided for the purpose as on the University of London, and this plan was first announced to me through the Argus.2 Of course I refused with indignation to become an interloper or intruder on the Gentlemen of the University, even if the chronic bronchial catarrhs, from which I suffer, and for which I emigrated to a warmer clime, admitted of my lecturing with regularity. Indeed lecturing has for me now, late in life, no charm, and I am satisfied, that it is so with you. Indeed where could we be more useful than in the creations, which we specially formed for our work. I was ordered to be within a month out of my Office home, and my enemies speak hypocritically of promotion, altho I get only houserent in addition to my poor salary, and have not even an office left, as in 14 years no funds were forthcoming to extend the Museum. Only this month as a mere addition the vote of the Governors Park was supplemented by £5000, but I got nothing for the Bot. garden. All that is left me beyond house rent & salary are £300 (three hundred £) out of this the Custodian of the Museum gets £150, and if Bentham requires soon his next £100 they must come out of it also, leaving £50 for the working of the whole Gov Botanists Department, books, travels, correspondence, while everybody will come to me for laboratory work, experiments, freights, supply, interchanges, information, just as if nothing had happened! —
You can only make private use of this letter.3
Your regardful
Ferd von Mueller
Would you believe that with my starvation means I had to provide last month alone for one forest station 10,000 (ten thousand) potted select conifers!!
Will you believe that since Oct last my groom, paid out of my own purse, had to perform all messenger duties of the Department, that my Museum was since then closed, in order that the amanuensis might work with watering pot and spade in the Garden, and that the seedsman lost the whole harvest for like reason
As for keeping a collector in the field any longer, such a thing would not be thought of.4
A newspaper cutting, annotated by M 'Daily Telegraph 17/6/73' is glued to the top of the first page of the letter: 'The European scientific world will learn with regret that the Baron von Mueller, whose name has been a household word for upwards of twenty years, and whose labours have been acknowledged by every country, is about finally to retire from the control of the Botanic Garden of Melbourne. The real reason probably is that the garden is required for the future more as an ornamental adjunct to the Vice-regal domain than as the centre of botanical science and experiment. We have our Ayrtons in Victoria. It is to be hoped, however, that the invaluable services of the Baron will not be wholly lost to his adopted country, but that in an honorary or private capacity he may still be enabled to follow those pursuits which have so largely benefited the public. He will retire from the immediate sphere of his labours with the respect of all persons who are capable of appreciating them.'
Another cutting, annotated by M 'from the Argus of this month' [Argus, 2 June 1873, p. 4], is pasted onto a separate sheet of paper and filed in the guard book as f. 97: 'When the question of the directorship of that scientific desert, the Botanical-gardens, was in debate last session, it was a powerful, or at least a reputedly powerful, argument in favour of continuing Baron von MUELLER in his office, that he had raised millions of young trees which had been distributed all over the colony, and had, so far, made the interior of the country to "blossom as the rose." This pretty, but somewhat well-worn figure, was, if we mistake not, actually used by one of the enthusiastic but ill-judged friends of our illustrious and much-decorated savant in proof of his great value. Now, however, we are told, on practical authority, — and Mr CASEY affirms its correctness — that we could have bought all those millions of trees for half the money they have cost the baron to produce them, and, what is still more irritating, we have to admit that we could have got them of a much better quality. It is possible that, in some mysterious way, a sickly but scientifically-grown plant may be better than a healthy plant of the same kind raised by a common gardener. Up to the present time, however, we have failed to see the advantage of this application of science, so that we are glad to know that we need no longer make the inquiry as to what is the use of our Botanical-gardens. They have never been beautiful, they are certainly costly, and though, like SOL GILLS, they have probably been overflowing with science, that is about all that can be said of them, since it has now been shown that they have also been of no use as a Government nursery. To have further delayed the change now decided upon, namely, the divorcing of the baron from the gardens he has so cruelly ill-used, would have been impossible. His admirers will be comforted to know, however, that his scientific services will not be lost to the country. The Fragmenta Phytographiae will still be issued to the public, who reverence but do not read it; and, what should be a great comfort to the baron himself, his salary will be increased, and he will have a clerk to save him the labour of writing. Moreover, he is to lecture on botany at the University, and considering that already two gentlemen there deal with that subject, to wit, Professor M'Coy on botany generally, and Dr. Bird on medical botany, it will be confessed that the opportunities for studying this branch of natural science will be considerable. It may be that new difficulties will arise out of this excess of botanical teaching, but about that we need not care so long as it is made certain that we have exchanged baron von MUELLER for Mr. HODGKINSON, and that we have now some prospect of seeing our Botanic-garden transformed from a cheerless desert into a pleasure-ground worthy of the name.' Extracts from these passages were quoted in a commentary in the Gardeners' chronicle that was reprinted in Nature, 21 August 1873, pp. 334-5.
Please cite as “FVM-73-06-16,” in Correspondence of Ferdinand von Mueller, edited by R.W. Home, Thomas A. Darragh, A.M. Lucas, Sara Maroske, D.M. Sinkora†, J.H. Voigt† and Monika Wells accessed on 27 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/73-06-16