Abstract
Often overlooked by historians, specialist gardeners with an expert understanding of both native and exotic plant material were central to the teaching and research activities of university botanic gardens. In this article various interrelationships in the late Georgian period will be examined: between the gardener, the garden, the botanic collection, the medical school and ways of knowing. Foregrounding gardeners' narratives will shed light on the ways in which botanic material was gathered and utilized for teaching and research purposes, particularly for medical students, as well as highlighting the importance of the garden as a repository of botanic material for the classroom. In this way, the blurred lines between art and science, skill and scholarly activity, and shared pedagogic practices between botany and anatomy will be revealed.
Highlights
In 1754 William Cullen, at that time professor of medicine, and Robert Hamilton, Regius Professor of Botany and Anatomy, complained about the lack of a decent botanic garden at the University of Glasgow
Specialist gardeners with an expert understanding of both native and exotic plant material were central to the teaching and research activities of university botanic gardens
This article examines the blurring of demarcations between the head and the hand within the botanic garden through the various roles of the gardeners as toilers of the soil, collectors of specimens, custodians of collections, demonstrators, guides, artists and experimental technicians
Summary
In 1754 William Cullen, at that time professor of medicine, and Robert Hamilton, Regius Professor of Botany and Anatomy, complained about the lack of a decent botanic garden at the University of Glasgow. Can be seen as vital actors in this period, as they created and maintained the physical space and its living specimens, as well as functioning as intermediaries between different audiences, and between humans and plants The consideration of this interrelationship between actors, objects and methods of enquiry builds on that explored by scholars included in Klein and Spary’s Materials and Expertise in Early Modern Europe: Between Market and Laboratory.[27] Gardeners, in addition, offer a new way to consider the relationship between practical and scholarly work as already explored by a range of authors in work such as The Mindful Hand.[28] This article examines the blurring of demarcations between the head and the hand within the botanic garden through the various roles of the gardeners as toilers of the soil, collectors of specimens, custodians of collections, demonstrators, guides, artists and experimental technicians. Provide a way to consider the connectedness between art and science as methods of knowing, methods that characterize botany and anatomy
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