What could possibly connect Florence Nightingale, Charles Darwin and the Raja of Sikkim? And why should a botanical discovery involve kidnapping, imprisonment, accusations of espionage and the political prestige of two governments? The link that connected all of these was Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker, the first European to be permitted to trek through Sikkim. His discovery there of the breathtakingly beautiful, richly coloured rhododendrons changed the gardens of Europe forever.
Hooker was a Victorian polymath who engaged with many branches of science but is best known as a botanist. The son of Sir William Jackson Hooker, the Regius Professor of Botany at the University of Glasgow, he had an early interest in plants and in stories of explorations by men like Captain Cook.
After obtaining a medical degree, he joined a British naval expedition tasked with exploring the Antarctic (1839-1843). He then joined the Geological Survey of Britain in 1846. In 1847, he was deputed to India by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and the British Navy to study fossil plants. It was during his botanical tours in Sikkim (1849-50) that the thrilling story glimpsed above, unfolded.
A diplomatic crisis
A request was made to the ruler of Sikkim, Chogyal Tsugphud Namgyal, seeking permission for Hooker and Archibald Campbell, the Superintendent (political officer in charge) of Darjeeling, to explore the flora and fauna of the region.
According to The Origins of Himalayan Studies, edited by David M Waterhouse, this apparently innocent request unleashed political discord that simmered below the surface. The British viewed Sikkim as their protectorate as they had removed Gurkha control over it and restored it to its ruler through the Treaty of Titalia in 1817. However, Sikkim resented the British takeover of Darjeeling (as a sanatorium and as a refuge from the heat of the plains) in 1835.
An anti-British, pro-Tibet faction had emerged at the Sikkim Durbar led by the Diwan (Prime Minister). So, Hooker’s request received a curt reply from the Raja, which said that if Hooker wished to examine the plants and animals of Sikkim, the Raja would order suitable samples to be sent to him. Hooker would be the first European to traverse the region and the Raja was possibly suspicious that his botanising was a mask for spying activities.
As subsequent events proved, his wariness was not entirely without foundation. The royal refusal, in the eyes of the colonial government, challenged not only Hooker’s right to explore Sikkim, but also by implication, the right of the colonial administration to obtain scientific knowledge in subordinate princely states and to assert authority over them. In other words, Campbell wished to teach the Raja a lesson in subordination and his insistence upon the expedition was the method chosen to enforce it.
In late 1849, Hooker set off to explore the northern and eastern passes of Sikkim. During the trek, the magnificent landscape and overwhelming abundance of flowers, plants and butterflies—all new to his European eyes—counterbalanced the icy rain, leaking tents and incessant attacks by leeches.
Later, on the way to the Chola Pass, after Campbell had joined the expedition, both were captured on the orders of the Diwan and taken to Tumlong, then the capital of Sikkim. The aim was to hold Campbell and Hooker captive until their demands were recognised by the Governor–General of the East India Company in Calcutta. The main target of their anger was Campbell; Hooker, unfortunately, was caught in the crossfire.
Their detention, which lasted for a month-and-a-half, only made the British authorities more determined that “petty potentates” and “barbarians” like the Raja of Sikkim, who obstructed the acquisition of geographic and scientific knowledge should “be taught a lesson, if necessary, by force.”
According to Seamus O’Brien’s In the Footsteps of Joseph Dalton Hooker, the Raja rapidly capitulated once the Company’s troops arrived in Darjeeling and an invasion of Sikkim was threatened. Hooker and Campbell were released on 23 December 1849 and Sikkim lost more territory (extensive lands between the Great Rangit River and the plains of North India) and rights (the annual grant of 300 pounds for the use of Darjeeling) as a punishment.
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Rhododendromania
Hooker had roamed the hills and valleys of Sikkim and Nepal for two years (1847-1849), during which he collected dozens of species of Rhododendron. He compiled detailed field notes and sketches, which were sent to his father, Sir William, the Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew at the time. The seeds sent by Hooker were the first of the species to be seen in Europe and to be grown on European soil. From Kew, they were distributed to other botanical gardens across Britain, where their descendants still flourish today.
The species was an instant hit with the Victorian public as it was hardy enough to survive the English winter yet bore magnificent tropical blooms. Hooker’s Sikkim seed collection thus unleashed a virtual rhododendromania across Europe, as per O’Brien.
Florence Nightingale and her father grew several of the species sent by Hooker in their garden. Their home, Embley Park in Hampshire, had entire drives laid out through extensive groves of rhododendrons. Charles Darwin, Hooker’s friend, to whom his own record of his travels (Himalayan Journals) was dedicated, received half a dozen as well. The seeds from Sikkim soon reached the far corners of the globe—South Africa, Jamaica, New Zealand, and Australia.[1]
Rhododendrons of the Sikkim-Himalaya was published in three parts (1849-1851), based on Hooker’s field notes and with exquisite illustrations by the well-known British botanical artist, Walter Hood Fitch. It depicted 31 species of the plant discovered by Hooker in his travels, of which 25 were unknown to European science. These rhododendrons were among the first to travel in a new invention—Wardian cases, a sealed protective terrarium invented by Nathaniel Bagshaw Ward in 1833. This made them some of the earliest living plants to survive the long oceanic voyage across half the globe.
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The imperial agenda
Hooker’s expedition was funded by Kew and they were repaid many times over by the riches he brought back—over 5,000 species of plants collected, dried and sent back to Kew and 700 illustrations executed over the period 1848 to 1851.
It is important to note this as it played a key role in determining the priorities governing the entire endeavour. As author and science historian Jim Endersby puts it, plant-based commodities were integral to the creation and sustenance of Britain’s colonial empire— from timber to tea, from coffee to cotton to cinchona. It was Kew’s (and therefore Hooker’s) responsibility to advise the government on crop distribution and transplantation.
The entire body of scientific knowledge obtained from colonies (like India) was harnessed to facilitate the exploitation of their natural resources. Moreover, colonial botanists focused primarily on the overall patterns and nature of vegetation (which fulfilled their aims) and not on recording the local specificities. This meant that the exploration, identification and documentation of unique flora—the rich varieties that existed of each species across localities—were not prioritised.
Hooker named many of the species after friends and patrons —such as Rhododendron hodgsonii (named after his friend Brian Houghton Hodgson, former British Resident at Nepal, with whom he stayed in Darjeeling), and Rhododendron falconeri (named after Hugh Falconer, Director, Royal Botanic Garden, Calcutta, who lobbied hard to get Hooker the necessary permissions from the government). Therefore, throughout the project, the priorities of the empire subordinated those of the colonies.
However, recognition of the imperial agenda, which stimulated expeditions such as those led by Hooker, should not limit us from appreciating his passion for his subject of study, the actual physical hardships he endured, or the painstaking labour he put in to document, for the first time, the luxuriant vegetation of the eastern Himalayas. It is due to his efforts that the vibrant rhododendron blooms, once confined to the forested slopes of the eastern Himalayas, now occupy the pride of place in botanical gardens across the globe.
Dr Krishnokoli Hazra teaches History at the undergraduate level in Kolkata.