Hooker was born on June 30, 1817 in Halesworth, England, the second son of the famous botanist Sir William Jackson Hooker, Regius Professor of Botany, and Maria Sarah Turner, eldest daughter of the banker Dawson Turner and sister-in-law of Francis Palgrave.
From age seven, Hooker attended his father's lectures at Glasgow University, taking an early interest in plant distribution and the voyages of explorers like Captain James Cook. He was educated at the Glasgow High School and went on to study medicine at Glasgow University, graduating M. D. in 1839.
Hooker joined Sir James Ross's Antarctic expedition, receiving a commission as assistant-surgeon on the "Erebus. " The botanical fruits of the three years he thus spent in the Southern Seas were the Flora Antarctica, Flora Novae-Zelandiae and Flora Tasmanica, which he published on his return. His next expedition was to the northern frontiers of India (1847-1851), and the expenses in this case also were partially defrayed by the government. The party had its full share of adventure. Hooker and his friend Dr Campbell were detained in prison for some time by the raja of Sikkim, but nevertheless they were able to bring back important results, both geographical and botanical. Their survey of hitherto unexplored regions was published by the Calcutta Trigonometrical Survey Office, and their botanical observations formed the basis of elaborate works on the rhododendrons of the Sikkim Himalaya and on the flora of India. Among other journeys undertaken by Hooker may be mentioned those to Palestine (1860), Morocco (1871), and the United States (1877), all yielding valuable scientific information. In the midst of all this travelling in foreign countries he quickly built up for himself a high scientific reputation at home. In 1855 he was appointed assistant-director of Kew Gardens, and in 1865 he succeeded his father as full director, holding the post for twenty years. At the early age of thirty he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society, and in 1873 he was chosen its president; he received three of its medals-a Royal in 1854, the Copley in 1887 and the Darwin in 1892. He acted as president of the British Association at its Norwich meeting of 1868, when his address was remarkable for its championship of Darwinian theories. Of Darwin, indeed, he was an early friend and supporter: it was he who, with Lyell, first induced Darwin to make his views public, and the author of The Origin of Species has recorded his indebtedness to Hooker's wide knowledge and balanced judgment. Sir Joseph Hooker is the author of numerous scientific papers and monographs, and his larger books include, in addition to those already mentioned, a standard Student's Flora of the British Isles and a monumental work, the Genera plantarum, based on the collections at Kew, in which he had the assistance of Bentham.
(Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker (1817-1911), botanist, explorer,...)
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President of the Royal Society (1873), Foreign member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (1885)
In 1851 Hooker married Frances Harriet Henslow (1825-1874), daughter of Darwin's mentor, John Stevens Henslow. They had four sons and three daughters. After his first wife's death in 1874, in 1876 he married Lady Hyacinth Jardine (1842-1921), daughter of William Samuel Symonds and the widow of Sir William Jardine. They had two sons.
He was an English systematic botanist and organiser, and botanical illustrator.
She was a British botanical illustrator.
He was an English civil servant, statistician and meteorologist.
