South-Yarra, 17/8/93
The honorable J. B. Patterson, M.L.A.
Premier of the Colony Victoria,
Chief Secretary
&c &c
Allow me, honored Sir, to express my deep gratitude for the generous remarks on my position,1 which through your most friendly consideration was maintained with that of some other professional administrators of establishments. May I assure you, that your genial words in Parliament2 are most cheering to me, and that I will endeavour by the utmost exercise of my faculties to merit the approbation of my honorable Chief also in future. Throughout my official career I have always watched over the interests of the Government financially also in the institution as established by myself, and largely founded on the extensive collections, commenced already in my boyhood and transferred as a free gift long ago to the establishment, so that so far it became one of the largest of its kinds in the world. I have also ever felt it my duty, to aid the Government in my little establishment, so far as I could, in the reduction of expenditures cheerfully, and being alone in life my whole striving has always been to prove as useful as ever possible to our fellow-colonists, and to maintain also the scientific renown of our colony through the establishment, entrusted to my care, worthily abroad.
Let me remain,
honorable Sir,
your obedient and grateful
Ferd. von Mueller.
In a debate on 'Retirement of sexagenarians', Patterson said of Mueller: 'Although it might not be necessary to appoint a successor to Baron von Mueller when he retired, it was not considered that it would redound to the credit of the colony to get rid of a man of such world-wide scientific renown merely for the sake of the trifling saving that would be effected by pensioning him off now while he was still able to add to the valuable information he was constantly collecting and classifying in order to select plants for industrial culture and for the Agricultural department. The expenditure in the Government botanist's department, moreover, was reduced last year by more than 50 per cent., two of the officers whose salaries still appeared on the Estimates being retained merely till such time as other places could be found for them' (Argus, 17 August 1893, p. 9).
The letter was enclosed in M to T. Wilson, 17 August 1893 (in this edition as 93-08-17b).
Please cite as “FVM-93-08-17a,” 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