Her Character & Spirit

On this page you can find out how Ellen’s botanist friends described her character, knowledge and skills and browse round a panel from the exhibition, Ellen Hutchins: the young woman, her work and her world, with information on her family, childhood, illness, caring responsibilities and her looks, character and spirit. Learn more about her letter writing, find out about James Mackay’s role in Ellen’s life and discover more about the amazingly strong friendship that developed between Ellen and the eminent botanist Dawson Turner.

Descriptions from her botanist friends

We have wonderful descriptions of Ellen’s character, and her skills and knowledge, by her botanist friends.

They described Ellen in the following ways:

”Her earnest kindness and liberality.”

“The extraordinary talents and no less extraordinary industry which she displays in the pursuit of Natural History.”

“Her science is only equalled by her liberality.”

“Although stationed at such a distant outpost of the scientific world, she is thoroughly and minutely acquainted with the plants of her neighbourhood.”

“Miss Hutchins amazed me by the extent and depth of her botanical knowledge.”

“Her zeal and knowledge in these plants.”

Three years after Ellen’s death at the young age of twenty nine, her great botanist friend, Dawson Turner, wrote a tribute to her in his book of seaweeds. He wrote about “her liberality, her pleasure in communicating knowledge, and her delight in being useful.”

Ellen was incredibly generous with sharing specimens of rare plants she found with fellow botanists. She was often willing to give her last specimen, and take the risk that she might have considerable delay and difficulty finding the plant again to replace it in her own collection.

A specialist botanist’s collection of specimens was their reference set for identification purposes, especially in Ellen’s time, when many botany publications did not have illustrations.

Liberality means generosity, being generous, the quality of giving freely. This describes Ellen very well.

He also wrote:

“Botany had lost a votary as indefatigable as she was acute, and as successful as she was indefatigable.”

In other words:
Botany has lost a devoted supporter who was always determined and energetic in trying to achieve something and never willing to admit defeat. She was equally strong in her understanding and insight.

Votary is usually used to describe a person who has made a promise to serve a particular religion or god, but can also be a devoted or strong supporter of a cause or an ideal. Ellen was devoted to the ideal of increasing botanical knowledge.

Indefatigable means always determined and energetic in trying to achieve something and never willing to admit defeat. It is a very good description of Ellen and her botany.

Acute is one word not two, and has nothing to do with “cute” as in soft and cuddly. It’s most often used to mean “sharp” or “severe” or “intense” in phrases such as “Suddenly I felt an acute pain in my arm”. (In geometry it means an angle of less than 90 degrees.) In its other meaning, it is understanding, insight or perception.

Ellen at Home

The panel below, At Ballylickey, is from the exhibition, Ellen Hutchins: the young woman, her work and her world. It contains information on her family, childhood, illness, caring responsibilities, and her looks, character and spirit. You can view and download a high resolution of the panel here.

In Her Own Words: Ellen's Letters

Ellen’s letters are a valuable source of information. Learn more about her letter writing here.

Listen to readings of extracts from Ellen’s letters that show her character and her spirit beautifully, and which tell us something about her life and her botany. (The letter extracts are read by Sarah Jane Scott, and form part of the Ellen Hutchins Heritage Trail Audio Guide produced by Abarta Heritage in 2018. See the Heritage Trail page for the full trail and guide.)

Ellen & James Mackay

One of Ellen’s correspondents was fellow botanist James Mackay of Trinity College Dublin.

Ellen absorbed herself in natural history, specifically the study of plants, as a healthy outdoor occupation and something to occupy her mind as a distraction from her responsibilities of caring for her elderly and sick mother and disabled brother, and her own intermittent ill health.

She often felt lonely, living fairly remotely and without anyone nearby who shared her enthusiasm for natural history. When botanist James Mackay of Trinity College Dublin came to Ballylickey on his tour of West Cork, she was delighted to have contact with someone who shared her ‘pleasure in plants’. He suggested that she collected seaweeds and later in a letter to fellow botanist Dawson Turner, Mackay said

‘I am a little proud of having been instrumental in setting her a going in a branch of botany in which she has made such a conspicuous figure – she had never examined nor dried a sea plant until I gave her the hint in the summer of 1805 when I had the pleasure of spending a few days with her at Ballylickey.’

They wrote to each other, sending specimens, and comparing notes on their finds. Some of the specimens are tiny scraps folded into the letter, others are carefully spread onto paper and dried. Ellen’s beautifully preserved seaweed specimens sent to James Mackay are still in the herbarium at Trinity College Dublin. His letters to her are in the archives of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, London. Recently Ellen’s letters to Mackay have been found at Trinity College Dublin, allowing us to see more of the story of their botanical exchanges.

Mackay wote from Tralee on 10th September 1805, on his way back to Dublin (see image below).

‘I enclose for you a small specimen of Hymenophyllum alarum in fruit, as I promised to you I would, I only found one in fructification the first time I found it which had not been seen before by any Botanist, but this time I have found about a dozen in that state.

The day I left Ballylickey I found the new Irish saxifrage by the side of the road before you pass the Priests Leap and in a bog at the foot of it on the Kenmare side.’

And in March 1806:

‘I received your favour and also the box of plants and shells quite safe. I am very much obliged by your attention and now return the box you sent with some plants for your garden – most of them would look well upon your rock provided you have some good fresh earth to plant them in…. I doubt not that the whole will thrive under your fostering hand.’

Mackay was instrumental in sending Ellen’s specimens of new discoveries onto the specialists in the relevant areas of botany across the British Isles, making her part of a community of people extending scientific knowledge. He posted her seaweeds to Dawson Turner in Yarmouth, England and this was the beginning of a hugely significant friendship between Dawson Turner and Ellen, conducted entirely through correspondence.

‘All the plants you sent me are growing finely. … To what I have done since you last heard from me. I have been longing to tell you of all the sea plants I have got, of beauty and rarity. I shall begin with Fucus Wigghii of which I have got in the same spot at different times 6 or 7 plants and have more plentiful than at Yarmouth. I cannot be mistaken as to my plant being the one described by Mr Turner as he had the goodness to send me a plate [engraved drawing] of it. I would send you a specimen but it is too precious to cut for enclosing, and I shall give you at least 2 in the next parcel.’

Ellen specialised in the cryptogams which are non-flowering plants, and she covered seaweeds (marine algae), mosses and liverworts (bryophytes), and lichens. She was very knowledgeable about all the plants (flora) of the Bantry Bay area. Her interests and work in natural history also included the collection and identification of shells, and she is recognised as the discoverer of a couple of rare species, and has been described as the ‘young Irish conchologist, Ellen Hutchins’.

Being resident in the area and knowing it well, meant that Ellen knew where to go back to find plants again and she saw them in all their stages of growth, and throughout the year. She could also work around the weather conditions. She combined this local knowledge with attention to detail and perseverance on the identification of species and varieties. She was very generous in sharing her specimens and knowledge. In describing a Conferva (seaweed), Ellen wrote:

‘Upon examining it closely in my little microscope I found it quite distinct and in fruit. I got but little of it and of that little send you the best and largest plants. It grows on small mussel shells. As I know the spot I found it growing now I can get more when we have spring tides with an easterly wind. Of what I have now remaining I shall spread some specimens for you, and shall take the very first opportunity the weather will allow to get a good number of them.’

Ellen’s enthusiasm and energy for natural history is obvious from her letters. Reading them, you get a sense of her writing quickly, and with feeling. It is wonderful to have the letters as a record of two botanists collaborating, and for the details they reveal of Ellen the young woman and her world.

‘You may expect to get in the next parcel some good plants of Conferva Ardbascala. It generally grows on small mussel shells. The other plant enclosed sometimes on rock but oftener on Fuci [illegible]. I wish much to get Mr Dillwyn’s Conferva [his book, British Conferva]. Will you be so good as to let me know when it is published as if any part of it has already come out and the price, when I have this I can get a bookseller at Cork to get it for me from England. When does Mr Turner publish, are there any plates [engraved drawings] in his work? I fear I am very troublesome asking so many questions.

I am to have the boat and crew all the next summer to go where I please so that you may expect a good parcel at the end of it, I have high hopes of adding to our collections. If I don’t get something new I shall begin to feel what I think I have never yet been troubled with, envy, and then you know I must hate you with very good cause, you have had so much success. Until I grow envious, you have my best wishes for its continuance. E Hutchins’

Ellen & Dawson Turner

Ellen and Dawson Turner struck up an amazingly strong friendship through plants and letters.

Dawson Turner, in Yarmouth, England, was preparing a book on seaweeds. He received some of Ellen’s specimens from James Mackay, assistant curator at the Botanic Gardens in Dublin. Turner was delighted and in April 1807 he sent a parcel of plants to Ellen as a thank you. This was the beginning of a seven year correspondence, lasting right up to Ellen’s early death aged twenty nine.

Their early letters were full of descriptions of plants. Often the letters had specimens identified by numbers, pinned to the pages. Ellen and Turner offered to fill in each other’s collections and asked each other to help with identification. Ellen gave substantive detail; where she had found each seaweed, moss and lichen, their appearance. In the case of seaweeds, she wrote which season they fruited in, and which others they resembled. She described the colour changes as they dried, and talked of what she hoped to be able to find next season. Turner wrote about plants too, initially mostly providing Ellen with answers to her questions relating to her specimens. He also told her about other botanists he was in contact with, their tours and publications, meetings he was attending in London and he sent her botanical books.

Dawson Turner invited Ellen to stay with his family in Yarmouth; Ellen explained that her caring duties prevented her from leaving home. She, in turn, suggested that the Turners would be welcome at Ballylickey. Turner explained that a visit to Ireland was as improbable as Ellen coming to Yarmouth.

Gradually the topics covered in the letters extended past plants and botanists. His letters start to cover ‘domestic concerns’ of the Turner family, and the illness and death of friends and botanists, and Ellen wrote of her mother’s ill health and her own. Ellen described how much she enjoyed the stillness and solitude of the night by the riverside, and clambering over rocks and up mountains in search of plants. Turner quoted poetry. They conferred on literature they had enjoyed and he recommended books to Ellen.

Thus an incredibly strong and supportive friendship developed through the correspondence. Ellen had periods of illness that prevented her doing any botanizing, and she alluded to family troubles but didn’t give any detail. Ellen found the letters and the friendship a wonderful source of comfort when she was immersed in dealing with her own and her mother’s illness. Dawson Turner and his wife faced great sadness when a child of theirs died. Turner named one of his daughters after Ellen and asked her to be the child’s godmother. He said that Ellen of all women in the world was the one he would be most pleased for his daughter to emulate. Ellen collected and sent sea shells to Turner’s eldest daughter, Maria. Ellen and Turner showed real concern for each other in times of stress and illness, and sought to console and encourage the other.

By 1813, Ellen’s health was poor and she and her mother moved to Bandon for better medical care. When Ellen’s health deteriorated further in 1814, and she was bed-bound and under doctor’s orders not to exert herself by letter writing, she disobeyed and sent Turner a letter to reassure him that she was still alive. He was extremely relieved and wrote back immediately. She replied that she read his letters ‘with tears of gratitude and affection for such kindness.’ In this, her last letter to him before her death, she ended with ‘Send me a moss – anything just to look at.’

Ellen died on 9th February 1815 at Ardnagashel, just along the coast of Bantry Bay from Ballylickey, her lifetime home, at the house of her brother Arthur and his wife Matilda who had nursed her for the last nine months of her life.

Madeline Hutchins, researcher and Ellen’s great-great-grandniece.

Key to abbreviations used in photo captions

HFC – Hutchins Family Collection KEW – Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, London NHM – Natural History Museum London TCC – Trinity College Cambridge TCD – Trinity College Dublin

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Her Character & Spirit