Background
John Gilbert Baker was born on January 13, 1834, in Guisborough, England, the son of John and Mary (nêe Gilbert) Baker. Baker’s parents moved from Guisborough to Thirsk, Yorkshire, in 1834.
Portrait of John Gilbert Baker, English botanist.
Portrait of John Gilbert Baker, English botanist.
Portrait of John Gilbert Baker, English botanist.
John Gilbert Baker was a Yorkshire-born Quaker, closely associated with the Thirsk Natural History Society.
John Gilbert Baker (13 January 1834 – 16 August 1920) was an English botanist.
John Gilbert Baker, 1834 – 1920, English botanist.
1878 - 1920
the Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, London, SW1 England, United Kingdom
Baker was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1878.
1897
Baker was awarded the Victoria Medal of Honour of the Royal Horticultural Society in 1897.
1907
Baker awarded the Veitch Memorial Medal of the Royal Horticultural Society in 1907.
1897
Baker was awarded the Victoria Medal of Honour of the Royal Horticultural Society in 1897.
1901
Portrait of John Gilbert Baker, Journal of Botany, British and Foreign, vol. 39 (1901) by Berthold Carl Seemann.
1907
Baker awarded the Veitch Memorial Medal of the Royal Horticultural Society in 1907.
the Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, London, SW1 England, United Kingdom
Baker was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1878.
Portrait of John Gilbert Baker, English botanist.
John Gilbert Baker was a Yorkshire-born Quaker, closely associated with the Thirsk Natural History Society.
John Gilbert Baker (13 January 1834 – 16 August 1920) was an English botanist.
John Gilbert Baker, 1834 – 1920, English botanist.
https://www.amazon.com/Synopsis-filicum-synopsys-known-ferns/dp/5519226237/?tag=2022091-20
1865
(Ornamental plants are grown for their flowers, foliage, o...)
Ornamental plants are grown for their flowers, foliage, or overall appearance, and are distinguished from vegetables, fruits, and herbs, that are grown for consumption. Gardening is considered a relaxing hobby by many people, although gardening ranges from fruit orchards, to government planting of long boulevards of trees. Most common is the house garden, which may include lawns and other shrubs and trees.
https://www.amazon.com/flowering-plants-ferns-Great-Britain/dp/B0169Y8P5C/?tag=2022091-20
1873
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/9333171215/?tag=2022091-20
1877
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1294092413/?tag=2022091-20
1877
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1295529343/?tag=2022091-20
1885
https://www.amazon.com/Handbook-Fern-Allies-John-Gilbert-Baker/dp/1446083012/?tag=2022091-20
1887
https://www.amazon.com/Amaryllideae-John-Gilbert-Baker/dp/5518770049/?tag=2022091-20
John Gilbert Baker was born on January 13, 1834, in Guisborough, England, the son of John and Mary (nêe Gilbert) Baker. Baker’s parents moved from Guisborough to Thirsk, Yorkshire, in 1834.
A Quaker, Baker attended the Friends’ School at Ackworth; when he was twelve, he was transferred to the Friends’ School at Bootham, York, which then enjoyed a reputation for natural history study. His formal education ended in 1847.
After his formal education ended in 1847, Baker spent the next eighteen years in a drapery business in Thirsk. This uncongenial occupation did not impede Baker’s enthusiasm for natural history; when only fifteen, he communicated a new record of a rare Carex to The Phytologist.
In 1854 he collaborated with J. Nowell in a supplement to Baines’s Flora of Yorkshire. Baker’s zeal helped to create the Botanical Exchange Club of the Thirsk Natural History Society; when the society was dissolved in 1865, the club moved to London, with Baker as one of the two curators. In May 1864 Baker’s home and business premises were completely destroyed by fire and his entire herbarium and library were lost, including the stock of his book North Yorkshire (1863). This catastrophe caused him seriously to consider his future career, and when an opportunity was offered to engage in botanical research, he readily abandoned the drapery business.
The opportunity arose from an invitation by J. D. Hooker, director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, to join the staff of its herbarium. In 1866 Baker was appointed the first assistant in the Kew Herbarium, with the initial task of finishing W. J. Hooker’s Synopsis Filicum, left incomplete on his death in 1865. To supplement his slender salary, Baker lectured on botany at the London Hospital Medical School from 1869 to 1881; the following year he was appointed a lecturer in botany at the Chelsea Physic Garden. In 1890 he became a keeper of the herbarium and library at Kew, serving until his retirement in 1899.
His very able work on Hooker’s Synopsis Filicum earned Baker wide recognition as an expert on vascular cryptogams, and he was invited by Martius to undertake the volume on ferns in his monumental Flora Brasiliensis; Baker later contributed the Compositae to the same work. An early interest in Rosa, manifested in a review of the genus in The Naturalist for 1864, was followed by a monograph on British roses in 1869; he also wrote the botanical descriptions for E. A. Willmott’s Genus Rosa (1910-1914). He published monographic accounts of other plant families and genera, and made substantial contributions to Flora of Tropical Africa, Flora Capensis, and Flora of British India.
Baker was one of the great English taxonomists and a pioneer investigator in plant ecology. He wrote handbooks on many plant groups, including Amaryllidaceae, Bromeliaceae, Iridaceae, Liliaceae, and ferns. His published works include Flora of Mauritius and the Seychelles (1877) and Handbook of the Irideae (1892).
Baker's long, fruitful career was marked by numerous distinctions: fellowship of the Royal Society in 1878, the Victoria Medal of Honour of the Royal Horticultural Society in 1897, in acknowledgment of his valuable services to horticulture, and the Linnean Medal in 1899. He was also awarded the Veitch Memorial Medal of the Royal Horticultural Society in 1907.
(Ornamental plants are grown for their flowers, foliage, o...)
1873Botany was Baker's raison d’être; his enormous capacity for work and his output were impressive by any standard.
Baker was a Fellow of the Royal Society, of the Linnean Society, of the Thirsk Natural History Society, and a member of the Royal Irish Academy from 1902.
Baker married Hannah Unthank in 1860, his first child named Edmund Gilbert Baker, emulated his father by choosing botany as his vocation.
Baker received an invitation from J. D. Hooker, who was a director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, to join the staff of its herbarium. In 1866 Baker was appointed first assistant in the Kew Herbarium, with the initial task of finishing W. J. Hooker’s Synopsis Filicum.
