Today marks a significant date in Ellen’s Story for two reasons. On 27th July 1808, 210 years ago, she wrote to fellow botanist, Dawson Turner, to tell him of her discovery of a particular seaweed, Fucus tomentosus, in fruit, and that she had made a drawing of it. She wrote “I had great pleasure in…
Read more
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…
Read more
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…
Read more
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…
Read more
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…
Read more
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…
Read more
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,…
Read more
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…
Read more
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…
Read more
