Banks, a founding father of natural science and co-founder of Australia, was born in London, Great Britain, on February 13, 1743, the only son of a wealthy landowner. He married Dorothea Hugesson on March 23, 1779. He died in Isleworth, London, on June 19, 1820, aged 77. Banks devoted his entire adult life toward the advancement of science.
On his triumphant return from Captain Cook’s first great voyage in 1771, the young Banks was famously dubbed “The Botanic Macaroni” and “The great South Sea caterpillar.” Over the next 50 years, however, this satiric “caterpillar” was transformed into the “Bath Butterfly” by his royal investiture as Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath in 1795 (Figure 1). He was honored for his remarkable achievements in an era of enlightened human endeavor with his: knighthood (1781); membership of the Privy Council (1797); and his unmatched 4-decade term as President of the Royal Society (1778–1820). Banks galvanized the great scientific minds of his time,...
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Anderson, R. G. W., 2000. Joseph Banks and the british museum, the world of collecting, 1770–1830. Journal of the History of Collections, 20, 151–152.
Beaglehole, J. C. (ed.), 1962. The Endeavour Journal of Joseph Banks, 1768–1771 (2 vols.) Online at: http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks05/0501141h.html
Hooker, J. (ed.), 1896. Journal of The Right Hon Sir Joseph Banks. London: Macmillan.
O’Brian, P., 1987. Joseph Banks: A life, p. 328. Chicago: University of Chicago Press edition (1997).
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Duke, N.C. (2011). Banks, Joseph (1743–1820). In: Hopley, D. (eds) Encyclopedia of Modern Coral Reefs. Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-2639-2_183
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