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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The two films and other new materials here on the early 1800s page of this website are the culmination of a strand of work by Team Ellen over the past two years or more. The Team set out to understand practical details of the period in which Ellen was botanizing and letter writing. What clothes…
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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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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…
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On Thursday 20th August 2015, an exhibition opened in Bantry House of Ellen Hutchins’ watercolour drawings of seaweeds. This was their first showing in the Republic of Ireland and their home coming. They were drawn by Ellen Hutchins, at Ballylickey, about four miles from Bantry House, on Bantry Bay. Ellen was born at Ballylickey in…
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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…
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This delightful book, The Wild Plants of Bere, Dursey, Whiddy and other Islands in Bantry Bay, published by Sherkin Island Marine Station in 2013, puts on record the variety of wild plants found in this part of Ireland famed for its dramatic scenery, mild climate and sub-tropical gardens. The book examines the history, geography,…
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