Joseph Banks: The botanist who collected the world (#436)

In an era when the edges of the map still blurred into the unknown, one young Englishman set out not to conquer new worlds but to understand them.

Sir Joseph Banks - botanist, explorer, and confidant of King George III - helped transform how Europeans saw nature itself.

His name survives in flowers, islands, and libraries, yet his life remains a study in both enlightenment and empire.

Lincolnshire Beginnings

Joseph Banks was born in 1743 on his family’s estate at Revesby Abbey, Lincolnshire. His childhood unfolded among the wild wetlands of the Lincolnshire Fens, where lagoons and bird-filled marshes earned the region its nickname - the aviary of England. It was there that his fascination with the natural world began.

As a student at Eton, Banks noticed women gathering herbs for apothecaries. Curious, he began paying them pennies to explain the plants’ names and uses. That early blend of observation and respect for local knowledge would define his career.

Across Oceans and Cultures

In 1766, Banks crossed the Atlantic to Newfoundland and Labrador, collecting plants and studying the lifeways of Indigenous peoples. He was intrigued not just by flora and fauna but by how people lived in rhythm with their landscapes. The journey was miserable for him. He was seasick most of the time. But it deepened his conviction that exploration was a form of learning.

Two years later, Banks joined Captain James Cook aboard HMB Endeavour for what became one of history’s most famous voyages. The mission was scientific: to record the transit of Venus from Tahiti and to catalogue the natural wonders of the South Pacific. It was the first expedition in which science, not trade or conquest, took center stage.

The Endeavour’s cramped hull became a floating laboratory. In Brazil, forbidden to disembark, Banks sent servants ashore at night to collect plants in secret. In Tahiti, he studied Polynesian society, and, according to legend, returned to the ship one morning without his trousers after a romantic escapade with a local queen.

From there the ship sailed to New Zealand and Australia, where Banks and his assistant Daniel Solander encountered kangaroos, eucalyptus, and an astonishing diversity of species new to European science. Their discoveries would help establish modern botany. The Banksia genus still bears his name.

But the voyage was perilous and morally complex. Nearly half the crew died, and violent encounters marred their arrival in Polynesia and New Zealand. Nine Māori were killed at Gisborne; in Botany Bay, the crew seized Aboriginal spears that were only recently returned after 250 years. Modern scholars now recognize how deeply Indigenous guides and informants contributed to Banks’s collections and understanding.

Power, Gardens, and Empire

When the Endeavour returned to England in 1771, Banks became a national celebrity. London’s high society, and King George III, were captivated by his tales and specimens. The king entrusted him with developing the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, which Banks turned into a global hub of botanical research and plant exchange.

As president of the Royal Society for more than 40 years, Banks became one of the most influential men in Britain. His reach extended far beyond botany. He advised on agricultural reform, exploration, and colonial policy during the height of Britain’s imperial expansion.

That influence had darker consequences. Banks endorsed the establishment of a penal colony at Botany Bay, claiming there would be little probability of opposition from the natives. A misjudgment that led to decades of conflict. When the Aboriginal leader Pemulwuy was killed in 1802, his severed head was sent to Banks as a scientific curiosity. Its fate remains unknown.

Names That Endure

Joseph Banks’s legacy lives on not only in books and museums but also in the very names of the world around us. His influence crossed continents, languages, and centuries, embedding his name in science and geography alike.

• Plants Named in His Honor

  
  

  • Banksia. A striking genus of over 170 species of flowering plants native to Australia, known for their cone-like flower spikes and integral role in Australian ecosystems.

    
    

  • Banksia serrata (Old Man Banksia). The first species described by Banks and Solander at Botany Bay.

    
    

  • Banksia integrifolia. Common along Australia’s eastern coast and one of the first Australian plants to be illustrated in Europe.

    
    

  • Banksia marginata, Banksia ericifolia, Banksia grandis. All named in recognition of Banks’s pioneering collections.

    
    

  • Rosa banksiae. A climbing rose from China, introduced to Europe in 1807 and named after Banks’s wife, Dorothea.

    
    

  • Banksia robur. Known as the swamp banksia, it stands as a living emblem of his botanical reach.

• Places That Bear His Name

  
  

  • Banks Islands. A group of islands in northern Vanuatu.

    
    

  • Banks Peninsula. On New Zealand’s South Island, formed by ancient volcanic activity and named by Captain Cook in Banks’ honor.

    
    

  • Banks Strait. Separating the northeast tip of Tasmania from the Furneaux Islands.

    
    

  • Banks Island (Canada). The westernmost island of the Arctic Archipelago.

    
    

  • Sir Joseph Banks Group. A cluster of small islands off the coast of South Australia.

    
    

  • Banks Point, Banks Bay, Banks Peninsula (Antarctica). All echoing his global scientific footprint.

    
    

• Institutions and Memorials

  
  

  • Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. His vision and direction made Kew the world’s leading centre of botanical science.

    
    

  • The Joseph Banks Conservatory. Originally built in Lincolnshire to commemorate his 250th birthday, now relocated to Woodside Wildlife Park.

    
    

  • The Sir Joseph Banks Society (Horncastle). Dedicated to preserving his legacy through research, exhibitions, and education.

    
    

  • Banks Building, Natural History Museum (London).  Home to many of the specimens collected during his voyages.

Home and Legacy

Back in Lincolnshire, Banks applied his vision to his homeland. He championed the drainage of the Fens and supported the building of canals linking rural towns to the industrial economy. The landscape he had explored as a child - the ponds, reeds, and birds of his youth - was transformed into farmland. In both empire and home, Banks’s hand shaped the environment he loved.

He died in 1820, aged 77. By then, he had helped build Kew Gardens into the world’s greatest repository of plant life and had become synonymous with the scientific spirit of his age.

The Dual Nature of Discovery

To admire Joseph Banks is to wrestle with contradiction.

He was a man of vision who helped open the world’s eyes to its botanical beauty, but also a man whose curiosity was entangled with empire.

His collections enriched science, yet they also reflected a colonial mindset that saw nature and culture alike as specimens to be classified.

Perhaps the truest way to remember him is not as a saint or a villain, but as a symbol of his century.

A man who collected the world, and in doing so, forced us to confront how knowledge, power, and wonder can coexist in uneasy balance.

#bunyipsbooksbeyond