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…
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Originally A Zoom performance / talk, Tuesday 14th December 2021 (postponed from 7th December because of Storm Barra), now available as a recorded webinar, price €6 for the online shop HERE How did their friendship grow? An opportunity to live through a moment in time and a slice of two lives, through their letters. In…
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On 29th May 1811, Ellen Hutchins wrote to Dawson Turner, just after she had received various things from him. He had sent a parcel of engravings of liverworts made by William Jackson Hooker for his book, British Jungermanniae, and a long list of comments from William Borrer, a specialist on lichens, giving Ellen help to…
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Ellen could wait no longer for a letter from him, she felt that she must send her latest find, the fruit of a lichen, to Dawson Turner with a letter, written on 7th May 1811, 210 years ago today. This is the fourth in a series of five letters, written On This Day 210 years…
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On 9th April, 210 years ago today, Ellen answered a letter that she had just received from Dawson Turner, written on 25th March. His letter to Ellen has survived and you can read it HERE. Ellen’s letter written on 9th April 1811 is HERE. This is letter three of a set of five letters. The…
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Just two weeks since her last letter of 8th March, Ellen again wrote to Dawson Turner, botanist and banker of Yarmouth, Norfolk, England. Ellen had recently turned 26 years old, her birthday was on 17th March (St Patrick’s Day). She had received a letter from Dawson Turner (the letter has not survived) in which he…
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8th March 2021, International Women’s Day, and Bantry Library has chosen Ellen Hutchins as their local champion, an example of a woman who has “broken the mould” and achieved what might have been considered unachievable in their time. Ellen studied the cryptogams – non-flowering plants – and sought to increase our understanding of them, at…
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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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