1.
Stepney
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Stepney is a district of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets in Londons East End that grew out of a medieval village around St Dunstans church and the 15th century ribbon development of Mile End Road. The area built up rapidly in the 19th century, mainly to immigrant workers and displaced London poor. Some Georgian architecture and Victorian era terraced housing survive in patches, for example Arbour Square, the side of Stepney Green. Stepney is roughly bounded by Commercial Road, part of the A13, in the south, Mile End Road, part of the A11, in the north, the western boundary with Whitechapel is rather ambiguous. It is administered by the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, the first community developed around the church of St Dunstans, which was founded in 923. Its name was recorded around 1000 AD as Stybbanhyð, Stybbas landing-place, there were over 100 serfs, split between villeins who ploughed the land, and cottars who assisted the villeins in return for a hut or cottage. Bishop William held this land in demesne, in the manor of Stepney, on the day on which King Edward was alive, in the same vill Ranulph Flambard holds 3½ hides of the bishop. The Manor of Stepney was held by the Bishop of London in compensation for his duties in maintaining and garrisoning the Tower of London, further ecclesiastic holdings came about from the need to enclose the marshes and create flood defences along the Thames. Edward VI passed the land to the Wentworth family, and thence to their descendants, the ecclesiastic system of copyhold, whereby land was leased to tenants for terms as short as seven years, prevailed throughout the manor. This severely limited scope for improvement of the land and new building until the estate was broken up in the 19th century, in the early 20th century, Stepney was one of the most Jewish neighbourhoods in England, it was eventually replaced by Stamford Hill. The Siege of Sidney Street took place in Stepney in 1911, the parish included the hamlets of Mile End Old Town, Mile End New Town, and Ratcliff. At its early extent it additionally included Whitechapel, Wapping, Stratford Bow, Shadwell, Spitalfields, Bethnal Green, Limehouse and Poplar. Over time the parish was broken up with these settlements forming new independent parishes, leaving a residual parish of 830 acres comprising Mile End Old Town, Mile End New Town and Ratcliff. Stepney is an area in the Anglican Diocese of London, which covers the London boroughs of Hackney, Islington and Tower Hamlets. The Metropolitan Borough of Stepney was formed in 1900, then dissolved in 1965 when it was absorbed into the newly created London Borough of Tower Hamlets which currently administers the area, Stepney is located 3.6 miles east north-east of Charing Cross. It is roughly bounded by Commercial Road, part of the A13, in the south, Mile End Road, part of the A11, in the north, the Western Boundary with Whitechapel is rather ambiguous. The area still contains a range of immigrants, particularly young Asian families, as well as elderly East Enders, some students, based on 2001 census, Bangladeshis were the largest ethnic group, then the White British. In 2011, Stepney was 47% Bengali, the highest in Southern England, a brewery was founded in 1738 that developed into Charrington and Co. in 1897
2.
Saint Helena
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It is part of the British Overseas Territory of Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha. Saint Helena measures about 16 by 8 kilometres and has a population of 4,534 and it was named after Saint Helena of Constantinople. The island, one of the most remote islands in the world, was uninhabited when discovered by the Portuguese in 1502 and it was an important stopover for ships sailing to Europe from Asia and South Africa for centuries. Napoleon was imprisoned there in exile by the British, as were Dinuzulu kaCetshwayo, between 1791 and 1833, Saint Helena became the site of a series of experiments in conservation, reforestation and attempts to boost rainfall artificially. This environmental intervention was closely linked to the conceptualisation of the processes of environmental change, Saint Helena is Britains second-oldest remaining overseas territory after Bermuda. The Portuguese found the island uninhabited, with an abundance of trees and they imported livestock, fruit trees and vegetables, and built a chapel and one or two houses. Englishman Sir Francis Drake probably located the island on the leg of his circumnavigation of the world. In developing their Far East trade, the Dutch also began to frequent the island, the Dutch Republic formally made claim to Saint Helena in 1633, although there is no evidence that they ever occupied, colonized, or fortified it. By 1651, the Dutch had mainly abandoned the island in favour of their colony at the Cape of Good Hope. In 1657, Oliver Cromwell granted the English East India Company a charter to govern Saint Helena and, the following year, the first governor Captain John Dutton arrived in 1659, making Saint Helena one of Britains oldest colonies outside North America and the Caribbean. A fort and houses were built, after the Restoration of the English monarchy in 1660, the East India Company received a royal charter giving it the sole right to fortify and colonise the island. The fort was renamed James Fort and the town Jamestown, in honour of the Duke of York, between January and May 1673, the Dutch East India Company forcibly took the island, before English reinforcements restored English East India Company control. The company experienced difficulty attracting new immigrants, and sentiments of unrest, a census in 1723 recorded 1,110 people, including 610 slaves. The island enjoyed a period of prosperity from about 1770. Captain James Cook visited the island in 1775 on the leg of his second circumnavigation of the world. St. James Church was erected in Jamestown in 1774, the site of this telescope is near Saint Mathews Church in Hutts Gate in the Longwood district. The 680-metre high hill there is named for him and is called Halleys Mount, throughout this period, Saint Helena was an important port of call of the East India Company. East Indiamen would stop there on the leg of their voyages to British India
3.
Kingdom of Great Britain
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The Kingdom of Great Britain, officially Great Britain, was a sovereign state in western Europe from 1 May 1707 to 31 December 1800. It did not include Ireland, which remained a separate realm, the unitary state was governed by a single parliament and government that was based in Westminster. Also after the accession of George I to the throne of Great Britain in 1714, the early years of the unified kingdom were marked by Jacobite risings which ended in defeat for the Stuart cause at Culloden in 1746. On 1 January 1801, the kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland were merged to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. In 1922, five-sixths of Ireland seceded from the United Kingdom, the name Britain descends from the Latin name for the island of Great Britain, Britannia or Brittānia, the land of the Britons via the Old French Bretaigne and Middle English Bretayne, Breteyne. The term Great Britain was first used officially in 1474, in the instrument drawing up the proposal for a marriage between Edward IV of Englands daughter Cecily and James III of Scotlands son James. The Treaty of Union and the subsequent Acts of Union state that England and Scotland were to be United into one Kingdom by the Name of Great Britain. However, both the Acts and the Treaty also refer numerous times to the United Kingdom and the longer form, other publications refer to the country as the United Kingdom after 1707 as well. The websites of the UK parliament, the Scottish Parliament, the BBC, additionally, the term United Kingdom was found in informal use during the 18th century to describe the state. The new state created in 1707 included the island of Great Britain, the kingdoms of England and Scotland, both in existence from the 9th century, were separate states until 1707. However, they had come into a union in 1603. Each of the three kingdoms maintained its own parliament and laws and this disposition changed dramatically when the Acts of Union 1707 came into force, with a single unified Crown of Great Britain and a single unified parliament. Ireland remained formally separate, with its own parliament, until the Acts of Union 1800, legislative power was vested in the Parliament of Great Britain, which replaced both the Parliament of England and the Parliament of Scotland. In practice it was a continuation of the English parliament, sitting at the location in Westminster. Newly created peers in the Peerage of Great Britain were given the right to sit in the Lords. Despite the end of a parliament for Scotland, it retained its own laws. As a result of Poynings Law of 1495, the Parliament of Ireland was subordinate to the Parliament of England, the Act was repealed by the Repeal of Act for Securing Dependence of Ireland Act 1782. The same year, the Irish constitution of 1782 produced a period of legislative freedom, the 18th century saw England, and after 1707 Great Britain, rise to become the worlds dominant colonial power, with France its main rival on the imperial stage
4.
British Empire
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The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It originated with the possessions and trading posts established by England between the late 16th and early 18th centuries. At its height, it was the largest empire in history and, for over a century, was the foremost global power. By 1913, the British Empire held sway over 412 million people, 23% of the population at the time. As a result, its political, legal, linguistic and cultural legacy is widespread, during the Age of Discovery in the 15th and 16th centuries, Portugal and Spain pioneered European exploration of the globe, and in the process established large overseas empires. Envious of the great wealth these empires generated, England, France, the independence of the Thirteen Colonies in North America in 1783 after the American War of Independence caused Britain to lose some of its oldest and most populous colonies. British attention soon turned towards Asia, Africa, and the Pacific, after the defeat of France in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, Britain emerged as the principal naval and imperial power of the 19th century. In the early 19th century, the Industrial Revolution began to transform Britain, the British Empire expanded to include India, large parts of Africa and many other territories throughout the world. In Britain, political attitudes favoured free trade and laissez-faire policies, during the 19th Century, Britains population increased at a dramatic rate, accompanied by rapid urbanisation, which caused significant social and economic stresses. To seek new markets and sources of raw materials, the Conservative Party under Benjamin Disraeli launched a period of imperialist expansion in Egypt, South Africa, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand became self-governing dominions. By the start of the 20th century, Germany and the United States had begun to challenge Britains economic lead, subsequent military and economic tensions between Britain and Germany were major causes of the First World War, during which Britain relied heavily upon its empire. The conflict placed enormous strain on the military, financial and manpower resources of Britain, although the British Empire achieved its largest territorial extent immediately after World War I, Britain was no longer the worlds pre-eminent industrial or military power. In the Second World War, Britains colonies in Southeast Asia were occupied by Imperial Japan, despite the final victory of Britain and its allies, the damage to British prestige helped to accelerate the decline of the empire. India, Britains most valuable and populous possession, achieved independence as part of a larger movement in which Britain granted independence to most territories of the empire. The transfer of Hong Kong to China in 1997 marked for many the end of the British Empire, fourteen overseas territories remain under British sovereignty. After independence, many former British colonies joined the Commonwealth of Nations, the United Kingdom is now one of 16 Commonwealth nations, a grouping known informally as the Commonwealth realms, that share a monarch, Queen Elizabeth II. The foundations of the British Empire were laid when England and Scotland were separate kingdoms. In 1496, King Henry VII of England, following the successes of Spain and Portugal in overseas exploration, Cabot led another voyage to the Americas the following year but nothing was ever heard of his ships again
5.
Royal Navy
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The Royal Navy is the United Kingdoms naval warfare force. Although warships were used by the English kings from the medieval period. The modern Royal Navy traces its origins to the early 16th century, from the middle decades of the 17th century and through the 18th century, the Royal Navy vied with the Dutch Navy and later with the French Navy for maritime supremacy. From the mid 18th century it was the worlds most powerful navy until surpassed by the United States Navy during the Second World War. The Royal Navy played a key part in establishing the British Empire as the world power during the 19th. Due to this historical prominence, it is common, even among non-Britons, following World War I, the Royal Navy was significantly reduced in size, although at the onset of the Second World War it was still the worlds largest. By the end of the war, however, the United States Navy had emerged as the worlds largest, during the Cold War, the Royal Navy transformed into a primarily anti-submarine force, hunting for Soviet submarines, mostly active in the GIUK gap. The Royal Navy is part of Her Majestys Naval Service, which includes the Royal Marines. The professional head of the Naval Service is the First Sea Lord, the Defence Council delegates management of the Naval Service to the Admiralty Board, chaired by the Secretary of State for Defence. The strength of the fleet of the Kingdom of England was an important element in the power in the 10th century. English naval power declined as a result of the Norman conquest. Medieval fleets, in England as elsewhere, were almost entirely composed of merchant ships enlisted into service in time of war. Englands naval organisation was haphazard and the mobilisation of fleets when war broke out was slow, early in the war French plans for an invasion of England failed when Edward III of England destroyed the French fleet in the Battle of Sluys in 1340. Major fighting was confined to French soil and Englands naval capabilities sufficed to transport armies and supplies safely to their continental destinations. Such raids halted finally only with the occupation of northern France by Henry V. Henry VII deserves a large share of credit in the establishment of a standing navy and he embarked on a program of building ships larger than heretofore. He also invested in dockyards, and commissioned the oldest surviving dry dock in 1495 at Portsmouth, a standing Navy Royal, with its own secretariat, dockyards and a permanent core of purpose-built warships, emerged during the reign of Henry VIII. Under Elizabeth I England became involved in a war with Spain, the new regimes introduction of Navigation Acts, providing that all merchant shipping to and from England or her colonies should be carried out by English ships, led to war with the Dutch Republic. In the early stages of this First Anglo-Dutch War, the superiority of the large, heavily armed English ships was offset by superior Dutch tactical organisation and the fighting was inconclusive
6.
Lieutenant (navy)
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Lieutenant is a commissioned officer rank in many nations navies. It is typically the most senior of junior officer ranks, the ranks insignia usually consists of two medium gold braid stripes and often the uppermost stripe features a loop or executive curl. The now immediately senior rank of lieutenant commander was formerly a naval lieutenant rank. Many navies also use a rank of sub-lieutenant. The appointment of first lieutenant in many navies is held by a senior lieutenant, a navy lieutenant ranks higher than an army lieutenant, the navy rank of lieutenant is a NATO OF-2 and ranks with an army captain. From at least 1580, the lieutenant on a ship had been the officer immediately subordinate to the captain, before the English Restoration, lieutenants were appointed by their captains, and this inevitably led to abuses and to the widespread appointment of men of insufficient qualification. In 1677, Samuel Pepys introduced the first examination for lieutenant, lieutenants were numbered by their seniority within the ship, so that a frigate would have a first lieutenant, a second lieutenant, and a third lieutenant. A first-rate ship was entitled to six, and they were numbered accordingly, as the rank structure of navies stabilised, and the ranks of commander, lieutenant commander and sub-lieutenant were introduced, the naval lieutenant today ranks with an army captain. In the United States Navy, promotion to lieutenant is governed by Department of Defense policies derived from the Defense Officer Personnel Management Act of 1980, DOPMA guidelines suggest 95% of lieutenants should be promoted to lieutenant after serving a minimum of two years at their present rank. The insignia of a lieutenant in many navies, including the Royal Navy and this pattern was copied by the United States Navy and various air forces for their equivalent ranks grades, except that the loop is removed. The first lieutenant in the Royal Navy and other Commonwealth navies, is a post or appointment, historically, the lieutenants in a ship were ranked in accordance with seniority, with the most senior being termed the first lieutenant and acting as the second-in-command. Although lieutenants are no longer numbered by seniority, the post of first lieutenant remains, the post of first lieutenant in a shore establishment carries a similar responsibility to that of the first lieutenant of a capital ship. In the US Navy or US Coast Guard, the billet of first lieutenant describes the officer in charge of the department or division. On submarines and smaller Coast Guard cutters, the billet of first lieutenant may be filled by a petty officer
7.
HMS Endeavour
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The navy renamed and commissioned her as His Majestys Bark the Endeavour. She departed Plymouth in August 1768, rounded Cape Horn, and she then set sail into the largely uncharted ocean to the south, stopping at the Pacific islands of Huahine, Bora Bora, and Raiatea to allow Cook to claim them for Great Britain. In September 1769, she anchored off New Zealand, the first European vessel to reach the islands since Abel Tasmans Heemskerck 127 years earlier. In April 1770, Endeavour became the first ship to reach the east coast of Australia, Endeavour then sailed north along the Australian coast. She narrowly avoided disaster after running aground on the Great Barrier Reef and he then beached her on the mainland for seven weeks to permit rudimentary repairs to her hull. On 10 October 1770, she limped into port in Batavia in the Dutch East Indies for more substantial repairs, her crew sworn to secrecy about the lands they had visited. She resumed her journey on 26 December, rounded the Cape of Good Hope on 13 March 1771. Largely forgotten after her voyage, Endeavour spent the next three years sailing to and from the Falkland Islands. As of 2016 her wreck had not been located but was thought to be one of a cluster of five in Newport Harbor. Relics, including six of her cannon and an anchor, are displayed at maritime museums worldwide, a replica of Endeavour was launched in 1994 and is berthed alongside the Australian National Maritime Museum in Sydney Harbour. The US space shuttle Endeavour is named after the ship and she is depicted on the New Zealand fifty-cent coin and she was ship-rigged and sturdily built with a broad, flat bow, a square stern, and a long box-like body with a deep hold. A flat-bottomed design made her well-suited to sailing in waters and allowed her to be beached for loading and unloading of cargo. Her hull, internal floors, and futtocks were built from white oak, her keel and stern post from elm. Plans of the ship also show a double keelson to lock the keel, floors, some doubt exists about the height of her standing masts, as surviving diagrams of Endeavour depict the body of the vessel only, and not the mast plan. If correct, this would produce an oddly truncated mast a full 9 feet shorter than the standards of the day,1794 at the top of this page. The replica standing mizzen is built to this shorter measurement and stepped in the hold on the keelson, on 16 February 1768, the Royal Society petitioned King George III to finance a scientific expedition to the Pacific to study and observe the 1769 transit of Venus across the sun. The Royal Society suggested command be given to Scottish geographer Alexander Dalrymple, whose acceptance was conditional on a brevet commission as a captain in the Royal Navy. However, First Lord of the Admiralty Edward Hawke refused, going so far as to say he would cut off his right hand than give command of a navy vessel to someone not educated as a seaman
8.
James Cook
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Captain James Cook FRS RN was a British explorer, navigator, cartographer, and captain in the Royal Navy. Cook joined the British merchant navy as a teenager and joined the Royal Navy in 1755 and he saw action in the Seven Years War, and subsequently surveyed and mapped much of the entrance to the Saint Lawrence River during the siege of Quebec. This helped bring Cook to the attention of the Admiralty and Royal Society, in three voyages Cook sailed thousands of miles across largely uncharted areas of the globe. He mapped lands from New Zealand to Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean in greater detail, as he progressed on his voyages of discovery he surveyed and named features, and recorded islands and coastlines on European maps for the first time. He displayed a combination of seamanship, superior surveying and cartographic skills, physical courage, Cook was attacked and killed while attempting to kidnap the native chief of Hawaii during his third exploratory voyage in the Pacific in 1779. He left a legacy of scientific and geographical knowledge which was to influence his successors well into the 20th century, and numerous memorials worldwide have been dedicated to him. James Cook was born on 7 November 1728 in the village of Marton in Yorkshire and baptised on 14 November in the church of St Cuthbert. He was the second of eight children of James Cook, a Scottish farm labourer from Ednam in Roxburghshire, in 1736, his family moved to Airey Holme farm at Great Ayton, where his fathers employer, Thomas Skottowe, paid for him to attend the local school. In 1741, after five years schooling, he work for his father. For leisure, he would climb a hill, Roseberry Topping, enjoying the opportunity for solitude. Cooks Cottage, his parents last home, which he is likely to have visited, is now in Melbourne, having moved from England and reassembled, brick by brick. In 1745, when he was 16, Cook moved 20 miles to the village of Staithes. Historians have speculated that this is where Cook first felt the lure of the sea while gazing out of the shop window. After 18 months, not proving suitable for work, Cook travelled to the nearby port town of Whitby to be introduced to friends of Sandersons, John. The Walkers, who were Quakers, were prominent local ship-owners in the coal trade and their house is now the Captain Cook Memorial Museum. Cook was taken on as a merchant navy apprentice in their fleet of vessels. His first assignment was aboard the collier Freelove, and he spent several years on this and various other coasters, sailing between the Tyne and London. As part of his apprenticeship, Cook applied himself to the study of algebra, geometry, trigonometry, navigation and his three-year apprenticeship completed, Cook began working on trading ships in the Baltic Sea
9.
Joseph Banks
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Sir Joseph Banks, 1st Baronet, GCB, PRS was a British naturalist, botanist and patron of the natural sciences. Banks made his name on the 1766 natural history expedition to Newfoundland and he took part in Captain James Cooks first great voyage, visiting Brazil, Tahiti, and, after 6 months in New Zealand, Australia, returning to immediate fame. He held the position of President of the Royal Society for over 41 years and he advised King George III on the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and by sending botanists around the world to collect plants, he made Kew the worlds leading botanical gardens. He is credited with introducing the eucalyptus, acacia, and the named after him, Banksia. Approximately 80 species of plants bear his name and he was the leading founder of the African Association and a member of the Society of Dilettanti which helped to establish the Royal Academy. Banks was born on Argyle Street in London to William Banks, a wealthy Lincolnshire country squire and member of the House of Commons and he had a younger sister, Sarah Sophia Banks, born in 1744. Banks was educated at Harrow School from the age of 9 and at Eton College from 1756, as a boy, Banks enjoyed exploring the Lincolnshire countryside and developed a keen interest in nature, history and botany. When he was 17, he was inoculated with smallpox, but he became ill, in late 1760, he was enrolled as a gentleman-commoner at the University of Oxford. At Oxford, he matriculated at Christ Church, where his studies were focused on natural history rather than the classical curriculum. Determined to receive instruction, he paid the Cambridge botanist Israel Lyons to deliver a series of lectures at Oxford in 1764. Banks left Oxford for Chelsea in December 1763 and he continued to attend the university until 1764, but left that year without taking a degree. He began to make friends among the men of his day and to correspond with Carl Linnaeus. As Bankss influence increased, he became an adviser to King George III and urged the monarch to support voyages of discovery to new lands and he became a Freemason sometime before 1769. He made his name by publishing the first Linnean descriptions of the plants and animals of Newfoundland and his diary, describing his expedition to Newfoundland, was rediscovered recently in the Royal Geographical Society of South Australia. Banks also documented 34 species of birds, including the great auk, on 7 May, he noted a large number of penguins swimming around the ship on the Grand Banks, and a specimen he collected in Chateau Bay, Labrador, was later identified as the great auk. Banks was appointed to a joint Royal Navy/Royal Society scientific expedition to the south Pacific Ocean on HMS Endeavour and this was the first of James Cooks voyages of discovery in that region. Banks funded seven others to him, the Swedish naturalist Daniel Solander. The voyage went to Brazil, where Banks made the first scientific description of a now common garden plant, bougainvillea, and to other parts of South America
10.
Daniel Solander
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Daniel Carlsson Solander or Daniel Charles Solander was a Swedish naturalist and an Apostle of Carl Linnaeus. Solander was the first university educated scientist to set foot on Australian soil, Solander was born in Piteå, Norrbotten, Sweden, to Rev. Carl Solander a Lutheran principal, and Magdalena née Bostadia. Solander enrolled at Uppsala University in July 1750 and initially studied languages, the professor of botany was the celebrated Carl Linnaeus who was soon impressed by young Solanders ability and accordingly persuaded his father to let him study natural history. Solander traveled to England in June 1760 to promote the new Linnean system of classification, in February 1763 he began cataloguing the natural history collections of the British Museum, and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in June the following year. In 1768 Solander gained leave of absence from the British Museum and they were the botanists who inspired the name Botanist Bay for the first landing place of Cooks expedition in Australia. These collections later formed the basis of Banks Florilegium, Solander also wrote a manuscript describing all the species collected from New Zealand during the six months the 1768 expedition spent there. It was called Primitiae Florae Novae Zelandiae, and was to be illustrated with the prepared by Banks. It was never published, but it was available for study by interested, first at Banks London home. Solanders return to Britain with Cook and Banks made him the first Swede to circle the globe, on their return in 1771 Solander resumed his duties at the British Museum but also collaborated with Banks on the Florilegium. In 1772 he accompanied Banks on his voyage to Iceland, the Hebrides, between 1773 and 1782 he was Keeper of the Natural History Department of the British Museum. In 1773 he was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Solander died at Banks home in Soho Square of a stroke, aged 49, an autopsy was performed the next day, and revealed a brain haemorrhage. He is buried in the Swedish Section at Brookwood Cemetery, Solanders reputation has been profoundly influenced by his limited number of publications and his premature death. However, after Solanders death, Banks, now President of the Royal Society, had he done so, he would have secured Solanders posthumous reputation. It has been claimed that Banks treated Solander, and Jonas Dryander, however, Banks clearly had a strong emotional bond with Solander, met his expenses and even supported his relatives in Sweden. I can never think of it without feeling a mortal pain, Solander remained an employee of the British Museum for the last decade of his life but was also paid by Banks to assist him with his collections. Banks relationship with Robert Brown, was more formal, Solander Gardens in the east end of London is named after him, as are the Solander Islands off New Zealands South Island and Cape Solander in the Kamay Botany Bay National Park. Also Solander Island, off the NW coast of Vancouver Island, one of the many plants named in his honour is Nothofagus solandri
Kingdom of Great Britain
British Empire
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