Herbarium History

Manchester’s Materia Medica Museum

Posted on Updated on

At the far end of the herbarium is a door to a spiral staircase which leads to the rooms in the main tower of the University of Manchester.  One of these rooms is known as the Materia Medica Room as it houses our collection of medicinal plants.

The materia medica collection is stored in a room in the main tower of The University of Manchester

The majority of these plants have come from the University’s Pharmacy department and were transferred to the museum at the beginning of the last century.

When we were looking for specimens of frankincense and myrrh for our Christmas posts, the Materia Medica collection was the obvious place to look.  Whilst photographing the jars I noticed that the original old labels stated that they were from the Materia Medica Museum, Victoria University.  I knew that the University had a Medical School Museum but hadn’t realised that the Materia Medica collection was previously a ‘museum’ in its own right.

I started delving a bit further into the history of the collection and discovered that it was put together by Daniel John Leech, M.D., D.Sc., F.R.C.P., Professor Of Materia Medica And Therapeutics In The Owens College; Consulting Physician To The Manchester Royal Infirmary; Pro-Vice-Chancellor of the Victoria University.

Here’s an excerpt from Daniel John Leech’s obituary in The British Medical Journal, (Vol. 2, No. 2062 (Jul. 7, 1900), pp. 63-65)

Daniel John Leech

…In 1876 he was offered and accepted the co-Lectureship of Materia Medica and Therapeutics in the Owens College. On the death of Mr. Somers he became sole lecturer, and in 1881 he was appointed Professor of Materia Medica and Therapeutics. At the time of his appointment the Owens College possessed no materia medica museum; Dr. Leech threw himself into the work of his department with the greatest energy, and at no small cost to himself. He has formed one of the finest museums of materia medica in this country, has organised a department for experimental pharmacology, a pharmaceutical department in which instruction is given to medical students in dispensing and practical pharmacy, and also a pharmaceutical school for the education of pharmacists. He made himself master of his own subject, and kept him self constantly up to date. His lectures on pharmacology and therapeutics, while being thoroughly scientific, nevertheless bore the stamp of his eminently practical mind and wide experience of the needs of actual practice…

… The lecturership of Materia Medica to the the Owens College to which he was elected in I874 opened out a new avenue for him and gave him opportunities to create a new department at the College and to distinguish himself as a scientific pharmacologist. He was not satisfied to give merely a course of lectures on materia medica – the driest of all medical subjects. He had heard and read a good deal of the pharmacological laboratories of Germany, and he started one at first of modest dimensions scantily equipped with scientific apparatus, but by his zealous endeavours, his perseverance and his industry and at great expense, which he mostly himself defrayed, it gradually developed into the present magnificent laboratory, in which such good work has been done and from which several of our young and prominent pharmacologists have gone forth.

This entry was posted in Herbarium History and tagged , , .

Lydia Becker mystery

Posted on Updated on

We have a bit of a mystery here in the Herbarium and were wondering if anybody out there can help us?

Many of you may have heard of a lady called Lydia Ernestine Becker (1827-1890).  She was born in Manchester and became a famous suffragette. She is best remembered for founding and publishing the Women’s Suffrage Journal between 1870 and 1890.  However,  most people don’t  know that Becker was also a botanist and astronomer: in 1864 she was awarded a gold medal by the Horticultural Society of South Kensington, and in the same year she published a small volume entitled Botany for Novices.

In the Herbarium we have some specimens that have been stamped  ‘Ex herb J Lydia Becker’ which denotes that they once belonged to the herbarium of J Lydia Becker.  The accession number (Kk398) indicates that the specimens came to the Manchester Museum from a collection belonging to Henry Hyde, donated in 1909.

What we are trying to find out is why there is a ‘J’ prefixing the Lydia Becker?  The dates and localities of when and where the specimens were collected fit in with them being collected by Lydia Ernestine Becker but why the ‘J’?

Also, does anybody know anymore about the British Botanical Competition, 1864, which is printed on the labels?

Finally, Henry Hyde.  Does anyone know anything about him?  On page 267 of the Whitelegge obituary in an earlier post, it states that Whitelegge had advanced Botany lessons from a Mr H Hyde from Manchester – my guess it is the same man.

Any help, suggestions or clues gratefully received…

This entry was posted in Botanists, Female Botanists, Herbarium History, Manchester Botanists and tagged , , , , , , , .

Whitelegge’s Obituary

Posted on Updated on

Following the Australia lead, I contacted Rose Docker, an archivist at the Australian Museum, Sydney, and made enquiries regarding Whitelegge.  Rose replied immediately (what a great service they give there!) with a very detailed obituary of Whitelegge written by Frank A McNeil, for the Records of the Australian Museum.

View The Whitelegge Obituary

What a life Whitelegge had!!  His childhood was incredibly hard.  He worked in a tarpaulin factory, become a ‘piecer’ in a cotton mill, worked as a weaver and then a nut tapper and bolt threader in a machine shop – all by the age of 11!

The obituary has cleared up the whole ‘breaking indentures and living as a fugitive’ cloud that was hanging over Whitelegge’s reputation…

At the age of eleven he entered Christy’s Hat Manufactory at Stockport, after undergoing medical examination and being certified as a youth of fourteen years. After gaining an insight into this trade, the youth signed indentures and became bound as an apprentice to another hat manufacturer for a term of seven years. The wages were six shillings a week for the first two years of this employment, and then an increase of two shillings per week until half of the apprenticeship term was served. After that Whitelegge was to be put on journeyman’s rates but was to receive only one third of these earnings. Just prior to this last employment he was receiving only four shillings per week, on which he and his mother subsisted during the awful days of the Lancashire cotton panic, brought about by the American Civil War. During the whole of one year the little family had no meat of their own buying, and in order to replenish the larder young Whitelegge used to rise at daylight on Sundays to scour the countryside for blackberries and mushrooms and occasionally seized potatoes and turnips from the properties of unsuspecting farmers. At this time his earnings provided the rental of a house. at one shilling and sixpence per week, leaving a balance of two shillings and sixpence for food and clothing. It was pitiful to here Whitelegge relate these facts, and to realize that the family would have been better off if he had been out of employment, as the relief money given at the time of the cotton panic amounted to two shillings and twopence per head. Having all this suffering still vivid in his memory, Whitelegge soon became acutely aware that the terms of his apprenticeship were iniquitous and after some contemplation he deserted his master. Setting out on foot towards Ashton-under-Lyne in Lancashire, he reached the Village of Hurstbrook near this town, and succeeded in getting work as a Journeyman with a kindly hat manufacturer to whom he confessed his trials. With his new employer’s help, Whitelegge evaded police inquiry, and sheltered at a farmhouse some distance away, where all available work was taken him. Except that he was all but arrested on several occasions when surreptitiously visiting his mother at Stockport, his stay of two years on the farm, was spoken of by Whitelegge as one of the most enjoyable periods of his life.

Whitelegge certainly lived an eventful and interesting life.  The stories I have discovered about Whitelegge’s life and work will really bring his specimens to life when they go out to our local communities in our ‘Museum Comes To You’ boxes.

This entry was posted in Botanists, Herbarium History, Manchester Botanists, Victorian Botanists and tagged , , , , , , , .

My Dear Whitehead… …I remain yours very respectfully Thomas Whitelegge

Posted on Updated on

Having looked through our archives, I found one letter from Thomas Whitelegge.  It was written to his old friend from The Ashton Linnean Botanical Society, John Whitehead.  It is dated March 23, 1885 and shows Whitelegge’s address as 537 Crown St, Surry Hills, Sydney, New South Wales.

Having discovered last week that Whitelegge had corresponded with Darwin, I was a little disappointed to only find this one letter, however it is such an interesting letter I soon cheered up.  Considering Whitelegge left school at 8 years old, his handwriting is remarkably easy to read.  Working in the herbarium and doing my History degrees, I have spent many hours transcribing Victorian handwriting so I know how difficult it can be to read.  I’ll try and find time to transcribe the letter fully and post it up here, but in the meantime here’s an excerpt to whet your appetite…

“…I  think it is now time I gave you some hint as to how I like this country.  I like it better every day and never regret coming out here but I have been very fortunate in getting a government billet, which is a fine thing out here there are no broken weeks or paydays although there is some 10 public holidays in each year, and the hours are only school hours 9 to 4 with 1 hour for dinner so that when I leave off I can jump on our steam tramway cars and go mossing and have 3 or 4 hours out before dark.  The trams go at such a speed to that is a wonder there is not more accidents then what there is.  The cars are double deckers ugly looking things appearing top heavy so that you would think they would topple over…”

This entry was posted in Botanists, Herbarium History, Manchester Botanists, Victorian Botanists and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , .

Thomas Whitelegge and Bog Rosemary

Posted on Updated on

We had an exciting morning in Herbarium last Tuesday.  It began when Andrea Winn, the Curator of Community Exhibitions, called to see if we could supply some specimens to put in a ‘Museum Comes To You’ box linked to the Manchester Gallery.  Andrea had already collected some cotton samples but now wanted either some Bog Rosemary (Andromeda polifolia) or a specimen collected by one of our working class, Victorian botanists.  I decided to see if I could combine the two requests and find some Bog Rosemary collected by a working class botanist.  In our British collection I found a lovely sheet of specimens collected from Lindow Common in Wilmslow by Thomas Whitelegge in 1877.

I didn’t know much about  Whitelegge but a quick look in ‘Desmond’ (Dictionary of British and Irish Botanists and Horticulturalists: Including Plant Collectors, Flower Painters and Garden Designers, Ray Desmond, 1977) revealed that Whitelegge (1850-1927) was indeed a workingman naturalist.  The short entry showed that he was born in Stockport, was Secretary and President of the Ashton Linnean Botanical Society and that he moved to Australia in 1883 where he joined the staff of the Australian Museum in Sydney until 1908.  Whitelegge became an authority on ferns and mosses and to top it all, he corresponded with Charles Darwin.

Andrea and I immediately started looking through our archives for any correspondence to or from Whitelegge.  Meanwhile Leander had found a more detailed biography of  Whitelegge in the Australian Dictionary of Biography Online.  We discovered that he had been born into poverty to an illiterate brickmaker, leaving school at just  8 years of age.  He went to work in a factory before becoming apprenticed to a hatter.  We were then shocked to find that he broke his indentures and lived as a fugitive for 2 years on a farm in Hurstbrook, Lancashire.  It was whilst working on this farm that Whitelegge developed his interest in natural history.

Andrea and I are both following some leads to see what else we can discover about Whitelegge.  We will keep you posted of any news.

This entry was posted in Botanists, Herbarium History, Manchester Botanists, Victorian Botanists and tagged , , , , , , , , .