From Joseph Hooker to Henry Barkly1    9 October 1865

No. 1

Buxton, October 9th 1865

My dear Sir Henry

The papers will ere this have announced to you the sad loss I have experienced […] I have lost in my father a companion of 25 years2 (we having one commmon object in life) and because the circumstances of his death were peculiarly sad to me. He was but 4 days ill, and on the third I was seized with rheumatic fever and lay imobile in an adjoining chamber during his decease […] after six weeks illness I was brought here where I am recovering […] my father has a very kind unanswered letter from you, dated August 3rd […] The Board of Works […] have given me the Directorship, the duties I shall endeavour to conduct as zealously (though I fear they will never be as efficiently) as my father  […] Poor Mueller will miss my father terribly, more perhaps than anyone on that side of the Globe. Bentham and I have both written to him,3 and he is vastly pleased with a box of plants that he has received from Kew.4 I shall do everything I can to gratify him. If the Victorian Govt. would recommend him for a Knighthood, I should suppose there will be no difficulty; and if my opinion were worth asking it should be most strongly in his favor, and I would quote Schomburg5 as an in every way inferior precedent.6

Extracts only are given here, to provide context to comments about M.
William Hooker died on 12 August 1865.
G. Bentham to M, 21 September 1865; J. Hooker to M, 9 October 1865.
See M to J. Hooker, 24 July 1865.
The explorer Robert Schomburgk, knighted in 1844?
See Lucas (2013a).

Please cite as “FVM-M65-10-09,” 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 29 March 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/M65-10-09