Gardens of Empire: The Role of Kew and Colonial Botanic Gardens

Sydney's botanic garden, founded in the early nineteenth century, was expected to ship new plants 'home' to the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, from where they could be transplanted to other colonial gardens, to see if they could become valuable new crops to enrich the British Empire. Such plans had varying degrees of success, leaving botanists to question why specific plants would only grow in particular places.

This lecture looks at how Kew addressed such questions, and the tensions between its role in the advancement of science, and as a public park.

A lecture by Jim Endersby, Visiting Professor of the History of Science 2 December

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website:
https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/gardens-of-empire

Gresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 2,000 lectures free to access or download from the website.

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