This is one of a series of posts of letters written by Ellen to her brothers and botanists in 1807. If this whets your appetite and you are interested in following the story, you might want to start at the beginning of the year and read the letters in date order. Ellen wrote to her…
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210 years ago today, Ellen wrote to her youngest brother, Sam. The following portions of the letter deal with her botanising, her attempts to get a copy of Lewis Dillwyn’s book British Conferva, a gift of plants on its way to her, and her cousin Thomas Taylor, also a botanist. Ballylickey June 18th 1807 My dear…
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Ellen’s letter to her youngest brother, Sam, written 210 years ago today – 1st June 1807 Ballylickey June 1st 1807 My dear Sam Tom has got your letter. Arthur is gone to Dublin. We cannot tell exactly when he will return. ….. You have got my letter by T. Taylor before this. I hope soon…
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The latest letter from 1807 posted here on the day it was written 210 years ago. Ellen to Sam, 16 May, in which Ellen uses the departure of her third cousin, Thomas Taylor, also a botanist, and studying Physic (medicine), as the means of delivering a letter to her youngest brother who was living in…
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Much has been made in many accounts of Ellen’s life and botanical achievements of her reluctance to have her name mentioned as the finder of plants. From the research I have done and the letters to her brothers that surfaced in 2012, I think that Ellen’s reluctance and therefore assumed modesty about being named is…
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Ellen wrote to her eldest brother, Emanuel (known in the family as Manny) on April 16th 1807, 210 years ago today. Ellen’s father, Thomas, had died when Ellen was two years old, and Emanuel (who was 17 years older than Elln) was the head of the family. He had studied law at Trinity College Dublin…
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This is a continuation of the series of posts giving the correspondence between Ellen and her brothers, and Ellen and James Townsend Mackay in 1807, with extracts of the letters posted here on the day on which they were written. On 3rd April 1807 Ellen wrote to her youngest brother, Samuel, telling him about her…
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210 years ago today, the Botanist in charge of the Botanic Gardens at Trinity College Dublin, James Townsend Mackay, wrote to Ellen Hutchins of Ballylickey, with whom he had been corresponding since September 1805 about plants she was finding in the Bantry Bay area of West Cork. He answers questions Ellen has asked about books,…
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Ellen Hutchins, botanist, aged twenty one, living in Ballylickey, West Cork, wrote another letter to James Mackay of Trinity College Dublin, her third in just over two weeks. She seems to have had more to say than she had paper to write it on. Having filled the sheet completely on the front, she turned it…
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Ellen’s letters to fellow botanists are one of the most important sources of information about her life and her botanising. A handful of letters from Ellen to James Mackay of Trinity College Dublin have been found and transcribed, and feature in the exhibition open now to 28th April. 1807 was a very significant year in…
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