On This Day & Where Did the Summer Go?
On this day, 29th November 1811, 210 years ago, Ellen wrote to Dawson Turner. The letter is a delightful one, with passages about the young girl who helped Ellen with her work on seaweeds, lots about lichens Ellen has found and her enthusiasm for William Jackson Hooker’s drawings (plates) of liverworts. She thanks Dawson Turner for various things he has sent her, and tells him not to give himself the bother of asking her about what names he should give to new plants she has found. She hops and skips through the various topics with no paragraphs and little punctuation. Read it here or go through some notes about it below, then read the letter itself.
Where did the summer go?
Before the notes on the letter ‘On This Day’ an explanation on ‘Where Did the Summer Go?’ On 29th May this year, I posted the last in a series of letters written by Ellen Hutchins ‘On This Day’ 210 years ago. I said that another series would be posted from 12th July onwards. This did not happen. Instead Karen Minihan and Finola Finlay created a performance piece out of the Summer 1811 letters for the Festival, and it was performed on 20th August on the lawns of SeaView House Hotel, Ballylickey, formerly the gardens of Ballylickey House, Ellen’s home. It was a lovely piece, much enjoyed by those who attended.
A new Zoom version of this Summer 1811 letters performance piece – Seaweed and Sealing Wax – is being presented online on Tuesday 14th December (postponed from 7th December because of Storm Barra). I hope that you can join us for this (8pm, €6). Bookings are via Eventbrite and a new link will behere shortly. It is really rather special to hear the letters read by professional actors and they are interspersed by information on letter writing, the postage system and costumes and customs of the day. You can find the summer of 1811 on a December evening 210 years later! For more information see here.
On This Day
Now, six months to the day, 29th November, since the last one on 29th May, here is another ‘On This Day’ posting of a letter with notes. Read the transcription of the letter here.
“The drawing begun so long ago for you”
Ellen’s drawing of the seaweed, Fucus fruticulosus, was published in Dawson Turner’s major work on seaweeds, Historia Fucorum. In his own copy of the book, Dawson Turner had the original drawings bound in above the engraved and hand coloured plates. See below for a photo of Ellen’s original drawing, in Dawson Turner’s book, now held by the Library and Archives of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, London.
Dawson Turner had done the same with his book on Irish Mosses, Musc. Hib., published in 1804 (before he and Ellen were in contact with each other). He sent Ellen this, ‘his own’, copy of the book so that she could observe in detail the watercolour drawings made for it.
The only drawings of Ellen’s that have been found are of seaweeds. Maybe ones of mosses will turn up somewhere at some stage in a Herbarium or the back of some cupboard.
Lichenographia
Dawson Turner worked with another botanist, William Borrer, on lichens, and together they were planning to produce a comprehensive study of the British species, Lichenographia Britannica. It was still in a very early stage of development. A sample sheet was printed to show what it would encompass. Dawson Turner sent a copy of this sheet to Ellen.
All the Cryptogams
They all get a mention in this letter. After a long list of lichens, Ellen moves on to enthuse about William Jackson Hooker’s drawings (plates) of Jungermanniae/ liverworts. She mentions Mr Mackay, botanist from Trinity College Dublin, then thanks Dawson Turner for his copy of his book on Irish Mosses. She mentions a drawing of a Conferva, No 80, and this is a freshwater alga or a seaweed (as at Ellen’s time the family included both). Rivulariae are also algae.
“The list of our plants”
Ellen was compiling a list of all the plants in her neighbourhood, which would be the first Flora of the Bantry Bay area. Her respect for Dawson Turner and what she felt was an unnecessary call on his precious time, meant that she implored him not to consult her on what names to give to new plants she had found.
“The Dawsonia”
Robert Brown (1773 – 1858) was an eminent botanist and also renowned for developing the use of microscopes. He identified and named the nucleus of the cell (1831). He identified the jittery movement of tiny particles, later called Brownian motion after him.
At the time of the letter, in 1811, he was completing the identification and naming of plants he had brought back from Australia. He had recently named a moss Dawsonia after Dawson Turner, with whom he was friends. Robert Brown sent Ellen his paper on the Dawsonia.
“My Little Ellen”
Join us for the Zoom performance on Tuesday 7th December to find out about Little Ellen.
Next
After 7th December and before the end of the year, I will put up the text of the letters between Ellen Hutchins and Dawson Turner for the whole of 1811 in three PDFs.
Read the transcription of the letter here
Madeline Hutchins, researcher on Ellen and her great-great-grandniece
29th November 2021
Image of Historia Fucorum courtesy of the Library and Archives of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, London.
Image of the letter of 29th November 1811 by kind permission of the Master and Fellows of Trinity College Cambridge.
Image of British Jungermanniae from the Biodiversity Heritage Library.
