‘I have made some discoveries in sea plants’

On 3rd April 1807, Ellen wrote to her youngest brother, Sam, about her study of botany and a range of other topics. Read the full letter HERE

In 1807 Ellen was 22 years old and Sam 20 years. Sam was about to go to Trinity College to study law. He was living in London with his much older brother, Emanuel (known as Manny), who was a barrister.

1807 was an important year in Ellen’s botanical studies. She was being taken seriously as a botanist within the specialist community of individuals studying sea plants / seaweeds / marine algae. Here, and in other letters in the spring of 1807, she told her brothers, Sam and Emanuel about her study and her success.

So far, she has not allowed her name to be published. By the end of the year, she had decided to do so.

James Sowerby, of Lambeth, London, was a botanical illustrator, most famous for illustrating and publishing the 36 volume English Botany. See his Wikipedia entry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Sowerby

Ellen had lived in Dr Whitley Stokes’s household in Dublin after falling ill while at school in Donnybrook, and describes him as her ‘friend and instructor in botany’. Arthur is another brother, and he lived at Ardnagashel, very near Ballylickey, with wife, Matilda and a growing family of young children. Thomas (Tom) Taylor was a cousin of hers and he too was a botanist. His grandmother and other family members (all the Taylors) lived at Inchiclough, near Ballylickey.

This letter is in the Ellen Hutchins Archives Cabinet in Bantry Library during the Ellen Hutchins Festival 2024 – Saturday 17th August to Saturday 24th August (Tuesday to Saturday, 9:30am to 5:30pm).