From William Potter   1 October 1893

Albert Park,1

October 1st 1893.

My dear Baron, —

You will be pleased to hear that I have got the appointment for which you and the Rev. N. Tucker gave me letters of recommendation.2 Allow me to tender my warmest thanks for your great kindness.

Yesterday I received a letter from Captain Jorgensen saying that he was in Sydney, but would be in Melbourne next week, when he hoped he would get the letter I was to write for him. He had been called away suddenly, so the note I wrote declining to take my part in the preparation of correspondence with Sir George Dibbs had not reached him.

It gave me very much pleasure to read the speeches of your friends in Parliament the other night.3 To know that the House so ignominiously scouted Mr Vale's idea, must be gratifying to you. I have attached a clipping from the "Record" of yesterday on the subject.4

I hope that you have recovered from the indisposition that prevented your presence at the meeting of the Association for the Advancement of Science.5

With renewed expression of gratitude and devotion

I remain

My dear Sir Ferdinand

Yours truly

Wm Potter.

 

Baron Sir F. Von Mueller,

K.C.M.G., M.D. &c. &c

Government Botanist,

Melbourne.

1
Melbourne.
2
Letter of recommendation not found. Potter’s appointment not identified.
3
In the Legislative Assembly on 28 September 1893, during discussion of the Estimates for the following year, Richard Vale, the member for West Ballarat, stated that the vote for the Government Botanist’s Department had not been subjected to retrenchment and asked ‘what return the colony was obtaining from this branch of the public service’. After declaring that the Department ‘provided an appointment for a man who was utterly impracticable as the manager of the Botanical gardens’ and noting that M had passed retiring age, he moved that the vote for the Department be reduced by £1. A succession of speakers sprang to M’s defence before the vote for the Department was passed unanimously. (See Parliamentary debates.)
4
See Record (Emerald Hill), 30 September 1893, p. 2, reporting ‘the highly eulogistic references made to the splendid work done for the colony by Baron Sir Ferdinand Von Mueller’.
5
See M to A. Macdonald, 25 September 1893, and to H. Tryon on the same day (in this edition as 93-09-25b).

Please cite as “FVM-93-10-01a,” 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/93-10-01a