The Collector: The Life & Loves of young Joseph Banks

By Graeme Lay

Brave, inquisitive, entrepreneurial: Joseph Banks personified the spirit of late 18th century Enlightenment Europe. Banks’ fascination with the plant and animal kingdom began when he was a boy in rural Lincolnshire. A privileged upbringing saw him schooled at the famous institutions Harrow, Eton and Oxford. As a well-connected, independently wealthy adult, Banks developed a particular friendship with Montagu, fourth Earl of Sandwich, who introduced Banks to the pleasures of angling, and the debaucheries of the London club scene.

In 1768, 25-year-old Joseph joined a round-the-world voyage led by the great English navigator, James Cook. This introduced Banks to the freedoms of traditional Polynesian society. He became an ardent lover of indigenous women and an assiduous collector of exotic flora and fauna. Following his return to England, Banks became a figure of renown, lionised by English society. But his dreams of a second world voyage with Cook ended before they began. How did this happen? How did Banks’ vision become a chimera? This novel tells all.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Nov 10, 2023
• ISBN: 9781035801992

Graeme Lay

A full-time writer, editor and reviewer, Graeme Lay has written prolifically, including short stories, young adult fiction and travel writing, and has won numerous awards. He has a deep interest in the islands of the South Pacific and Australasia.

Book preview

Prologue

Funchal, Madeira, 1 August, 1772

Charles Burnett, 24, stood on the quay, a sea chest beside her, watching HMS Resolution being turned into the wind. The British flag was flying proudly at her stern. The wind was light, there was a gloss on the harbour water and only a few cotton clouds in the sky. The temperature was scorching, in the nineties. As Charles watched, the ship’s bow anchors were released. From the quay she could hear the rattle of chains, the thump and swish as the anchors struck water. Men scampered up the ratlines and leaned over the yardarms, beginning to furl Resolution’s sails.

Charles pulled her cap down harder on her head. At last, she thought, he has arrived. These past weeks had dragged so. It had been a long, lonely stay at Hospedaria Suprema, the hillside guesthouse where not even the proprietor spoke English. Charles spoke no Portuguese. Every day she had stared out to sea, watching for Resolution’s sails; every day she had taken the steep walk up through the terraced vineyards to the top of the hill and relished the views of the Atlantic Ocean. Now, seeing Joseph’s ship at anchor and with the thought of being reunited with him, her heart began to race. Joseph, Joseph…

Blasts came from the ship, puffs of smoke burst from her cannon ports. Moments later the salute was answered by the Portuguese gunners further along the waterfront. Workers and food sellers winced and covered their ears; the acrid odour of gunpowder filled the air, overpowering the smells of cooking from the food fryers. Grey smoke drifted across the harbour waters.

Charles watched a launch being hoisted out from Resolution’s decks and settled on the water. Six crewmembers, plus a man in formal clothing, climbed aboard. Joseph. The boat began to be pulled across the water.

The launch drew up to the quay steps; mooring lines were tossed. The man in formal clothing, wearing a tricorn and carrying a briefcase, stepped from the boat and climbed the steps. Charles walked across to greet him, then stopped. He was young, good-looking, straight-backed. But it was not Joseph. Charles went up to the man and delivered her prepared speech.

‘Sir, good day. I am Charles Burnett, English botanist. I am here to meet my naturalist colleague, Mr Joseph Banks, and join his ship’s company. I was unable to join Resolution in England, due to the urgency of my botanising work here in Madeira.’

The man nodded, tipped his tricorn. ‘Good morning, sir.’ His handsome face had a bemused expression. ‘I am Lieutenant Charles Clerke.’ The expression softened, became apologetic. ‘And I am afraid to have to inform you that Mr Joseph Banks is not aboard Resolution.’

Charles’ expression became distraught.

The officer swallowed uncomfortably, looked down, then up again. He flexed his shoulders, then said firmly, ‘Allow me to explain.’

One

17 May, 1755

Cowslip Lane ran behind Revesby Abbey and connected the sheep pastures and the woods on the hill slopes to the fenland below. The lane was narrow and sunken, with banks on either side topped with hawthorn hedges.

Yew stick in one hand, canvas knapsack on his back, 12-year-old Joseph walked along the lane as it rose towards the woods. It was late morning and warm with early summer. Feathers of cirrus cloud hung high and unmoving in the pale blue sky. The surface of the lane was stony and dusty. With his right boot, Joseph kicked at a stone that lay in the dust. His timing was good—the stone leapt away, then came to rest a few yards further on.

He paused to get his breath, took the flask from his knapsack. Leaning against the lane’s bank, he swigged some of the lemon drink from the flask. He loved this lane, for its peace—it was too narrow for the farm carts to use—for the views of the fens that it provided and for the myriad wildflowers that grew along its sides.

Breath regained, he studied the wildflowers that grew from the opposite bank, below the hedgerow. He knew the names of all the flowers, had collected specimens of them, dried them, pressed them between the pages of his log and labelled each one. Since he was very young, he had done this. Among his dried collection were harebells, cowslips, oxeye daisies, cow parsley and dog-violet.

Dog-violet was the special flower of Lincolnshire. Joseph loved that one especially, with its vivid violet colour, loved the fact that his county had its own special flower. He plucked one of the dog-violets from the bank and held it to his nostrils. It had a soft, mustardy scent.

Sliding the flower and its stalk into the breast pocket of his jacket, he stared up at the hillside woods. The trees were covered with early summer leaf and formed a sweep of continuous green. Between the lane and the woods was the apple orchard. Its trees already bore their as-yet hard fruit. Ashmead’s Kernel, Joseph knew that species was.

He left the lane, walked through the orchard, then climbed the hillside and entered the woods. Making his way through the elms and oaks, he paused to admire the hundreds of bluebells that carpeted the ground beneath them. Then he paused. There was an interesting growth of dark brown fungus at the base of one of the oak trees. It was hard and discus-shaped. Did it have a name? he wondered. Breaking it off, he smelt it. It was earthy, rather like tobacco. He put the fungus in his knapsack.

It was his mother who had initiated, then fostered, his love of nature. She had always been very close to the natural world and its many variations. ‘Nature, Joseph,’ she told him, ‘Is not just something to be looked at, to be reproduced in paintings or extolled in poetry. Nature should be immersed in. Tasted, touched, smelt.’ So, saying, she bent down and buried her face in one scarlet bloom of the standard rose growing beside the front entrance to the abbey. Closing her eyes, she inhaled deeply, then turned, looked at him dreamily. ‘A flower is nature’s loveliest creation, Joseph. Remember that.’ He nodded.

However, William Banks, Joseph’s father, saw nature as something to be exploited, transformed, marketed. He found his wife’s infatuation with the natural world baffling, at best sentimental, at worst, a waste of time and effort. He was a developer, he transformed unproductive fenland into pastureland.

Sarah Banks ignored her husband’s indifference to the natural world’s aesthetics and continued to revel in its myriad mysteries. Even that which was not ostensibly beautiful. There was, for instance, the case of the common toad. Whereas these creatures were considered repulsive by most, his mother considered them objects of beauty too. Once she caught one in the garden, near the pond. She pushed up the lacy sleeves of her gown and held the toad out to Joseph. ‘Look at the beauty of its markings. See the delicacy of its ears, eyes and nostrils. Here, hold it.’

He took the toad from her and held it in his hands. He could feel its inner pulsing side, admired its green and brown markings and its stippled throat and belly. Even its warty skin was fascinating. He agreed, it was a creature of beauty.

‘Now, release it, Joseph. Gently, mind.’ He bent down and did so and as the toad leapt away in bounds towards the pond, he shared his mother’s affinity with it. All in nature was indeed beautiful, he thought, even the common toad. But whereas his mother attributed the wonder and beauty of nature to God, the creator of all things, Joseph was unconvinced, even from early boyhood, that this was the case. Nature was just nature, he thought, why bring God into it? Surely all creatures created and continued to create themselves, without any heavenly help. He’d seen male toads mounting female toads and the females later laying their eggs. No God needed. But rather than upset his mother, he kept this subversive belief to himself.

Emerging from the woods, the boy walked up to the pastureland where the estate’s sheep were kept. He climbed onto the dry stone wall that separated two of the flocks, the Leicester Longwools and the Lincolns. Above the ewe paddocks was the one in which the rams were corralled. Again, he drank from his flask of lemonade as he ran his eyes over the sheep.

Sheep rearing was an important part of the Banks family estate. Joseph’s father employed a shepherd, Walter Parkyn, to oversee the breeding programme of the two main breeds. In early summer the shearing gang came, mostly from Suffolk County, gruff working men who spoke in a dialect that to Joseph was incomprehensible. But he loved watching them shearing. They worked all day in the barn by the holding pens, deftly clipping the wool from the Longwools and Lincolns after they were shoved into the barn. The shearers then passed the floppy fleeces to others of the gang, who flung them on a table for inspection, then pressed them into canvas bales, ready for taking to the auction in Lincoln by horse and dray. After work, the shearers drank heavily at the local hostelry, the Ram Inn, before staggering back to their quarters, a barracks beside a stream that flowed down from a hillock above the barn. The stream served the shearers for their washing and drinking. He’d seen them pissing in it, too.

Walking on, Joseph paused beside the rams’ paddock to admire the enormous ball bags that dangled between their legs. He sometimes watched, fascinated, as the ewes were put to the rams. The belligerent creatures mounted, thrust and slid their members into the ewes, apparently tireless in their ardency, before moving on to the next female. About 150 days later the lambs would come, their gory births overseen by Parkyn and his assistant, a toothless Scotsman called McTavish.

Joseph skirted around the deer park. The does and fawns sniffed the air and turned skittish as he approached. He paused again, to admire the elegant creatures with their tawny coats and huge brown eyes. Deer were certainly more beautiful than sheep, but only half as useful, he thought. Deer didn’t grow wool.

His circuit of the estate complete, Joseph began to make his way back to the abbey by way of the public footpath that marked the estate’s western margin. The path separated it from the neighbouring property. Its owner was John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich, who Joseph knew was a famous person. The Earl had been first Lord of the Admiralty, but last year was dismissed from this post by the king. But Montagu retained the respect of many naval authorities and was a good neighbour as well as a friend of William and Sarah Banks.

As he approached the abbey that was his home when he was not at Harrow School, the boy’s thoughts now turned elsewhere. He recalled the announcement his father had made that morning, after calling him into his study.

William Banks had been taking snuff and the air was heavy with the cloying smell of pipe smoke and snuff. Joseph waited and watched as his father took another sniff from the little silver box, held his handkerchief to his nose, then let out a long, weary sigh. Placing the handkerchief on the table beside him, he said solemnly:

‘I received a letter yesterday. From the provost of Eton College.’

Joseph looked up quickly. ‘What did it say?’

Pressing his palms together, his father replied, ‘You have been accepted for Eton. You are to start in September, for the Michaelmas Half.’

Dismayed, Joseph protested: ‘But Father…I don’t wish to leave Harrow. I like it there. And Mistress Caulton is such a good teacher.’

His father waved a hand dismissively. ‘That is debatable.’ He picked up a sheet of paper from his desk. ‘You have learned little academically, the Harrow headmaster says in this letter. You still have little Latin. And no Greek at all.’ As he read, his frown deepened. ‘Struggles with punctuation and the correct employment of capital letters, is another of the headmaster’s comments. And the adjective he employs for your spelling is dire.’ His father squinted at the sheet. ‘Enjoys games and the outdoors, are the sole positives I can derive from your Harrow report.’

Joseph stared down at the carpet. It was true that he hated Latin and Greek, boring languages of ancient dead people. What was the point of conjugating Latin verbs in a stuffy classroom when there was the whole world of nature to immerse oneself in? And what did spelling and grammar matter, so long as what you wrote was understandable? He loved exploring the countryside surrounding the Free Grammar School of Harrow (a strange description, Joseph always thought, because he knew it cost his parents a considerable sum for him to attend) because there were untamed fields and woods nearby. He had read a little about Eton College in his mother’s encyclopaedia. It had been built centuries ago on swampy ground, beside the young river Thames. There was no wild land around it. Just a village, with a hulking castle beside it.

Looking up, blinking away tears, Joseph pleaded. ‘Must I leave Harrow, Father?’

His father nodded, curtly. ‘Yes. Eton is a fine school, the oldest in England. And right beside Windsor Castle.’ His expression softened a little. ‘If you are fortunate, you may observe King George and Queen Caroline.’ Setting the letter aside, he resumed a business-like manner. ‘At Eton you will apply yourself to Latin and Greek. Games will be a secondary consideration. I have an ambition for you to become a lawyer, Joseph, like myself and my father. The law is an honourable profession and may well lead you into parliament, as it has done for myself.’ His voice became lower. ‘Upon my passing, you will become the head of the family estate. And there will be no better preparation for that role than a classical education. At Eton College.’

Joseph did not reply. There was no point. When he made his mind up, his father was never moved. Then he had another thought. Mother. She was usually more sympathetic to his interests. He would appeal to her.

He did so later that day, when he found her crocheting a shawl in the drawing room. Her mauve gown was spread out before her, her coal-black hair was drawn back in a bun. The sun was turning the stained-glass window behind her into panels of variegated light reflecting on the portrait of his grandfather, which hung on the opposite wall.

Standing before her, Joseph said quietly, ‘Father wants me to leave Harrow, Mother.’

Not looking up, she hooked a line from the skein of yellow wool, then twisted it dextrously. ‘Yes. From next term, you are to go to Eton College.’

Making the most anguished face he could, Joseph made an impassioned plea with his mother to remain at Harrow, presenting her with every argument he could think of. He liked the Dame School. Mistress Caulton liked him and he liked her. He had made good friends there. Harrow was a day’s travel closer to home. It was surrounded by the outdoors he so loved exploring.

She listened to it all, frowning, her eyes avoiding his. When he finished his imploring, his mother said wearily, ‘I understand all that, Joseph. But I too have read the report from your Harrow headmaster. And the fact remains, your academic progress has been limited. Very limited. Your Greek especially, is poor, your Latin little better.’

‘But what use are those old languages?’

‘They are essential, if you are to read law.’ Her tone was unyielding. ‘Your grandfather, as well as being a member of parliament, was a Fellow of the Royal Society. Your father is a deputy-lieutenant and a barrister, in addition to building up the family estate.’ She paused, added pointedly, ‘None of those achievements would have been possible without a solid schooling. Including Latin and Greek.’ She smiled, tolerantly. ‘I know how much you love fishing. Eton is beside the Thames. You’ll be able to fish in the river there. And there will be rowing.’

Joseph looked away. Through the drawing room windows he could see past the estate outbuildings and across to the distant, broad green of the fenland. In the sinking sun, its waterways glistened among the greenness. That was where he loved to be, boating on the waterways, fishing the channels, collecting plants and flowers, looking for more specimens for his collections. Not stuck in a dreary classroom, trying to learn deadly Greek and Latin, likely beaten into him with the aid of a master’s birch. As for the fishing, the Thames was so tame, it could not compare to the wild nature of the fens. And rowing? He didn’t need to be in a rowing team, he could row his little skiff alone, slipping it into the stream at the end of Cowslip Lane and making his way down to the fens. All by himself.

His mother resumed her crocheting. Still in her kindly voice, she said, ‘You are our only son, Joseph. You’re bright and so interested in the world around you. Your father and I have high hopes for you. Schooling at Eton will confirm your natural abilities.’

Joseph turned away. Eton. He hadn’t even seen the place, but already he hated it.

He went upstairs to his room. Pinned to the wall above his desk was a string of the birds’ eggs he had collected over the years, some tiny, others quite large, like the geese and the woodpigeon’s egg. After collecting the eggs—always careful to take one only from their nests—he had blown them, then pierced and strung them on a length of his mother’s wool. He paused to admire the egg collection. With its colours, it was like a necklace from some exotic land.

On the mantelpiece above the fireplace was his collection of bird skulls and skeletons. The largest was that of a black-backed gull, the smallest a chaffinch skull. Leastways he thought it was that of a chaffinch, because of its tiny size. He picked it up, stroked its head and tested the sharpness of the beak. Bleached bright white by the sun, the bones were so delicate. He had found the little skeleton in the grass under a hedgerow. Traces of the bird’s gold-brown feathers still clung to the ribcage. Placing it back on the mantel, he picked up the adder skull he had found last summer in the woods. It had been half buried at the foot of an old elm, in the nest it had died in. The body had been eaten away by ants; the skull picked clean. It was flat, with deep eye sockets and a hinged jaw. A special find, the adder skull.

After putting the skull back in the line of bony trophies, he went to the window and stared out over the fenland. In the distance a group of his father’s workers, naked from the waist up, was digging at the marsh, working in water up to their thighs. The sods the men were removing were heaped alongside the channels they were making in the land. Above the toiling gang a flock of gulls was wheeling and cawing, ready to swoop on the sods and extract the worms they held.

Through the drains the men were digging, the surplus water was channelled eastward. It later flowed into the Wash and eventually the sea. More drains, more arable land, more money for the Banks family. It was his grandfather who had begun this process, buying hundreds of acres of fenland cheaply, having it drained, then selling it for a profit. Joseph’s father had consolidated the business of converting swampland into pastures and in the process, Joseph was aware, also making a great deal of money. ‘We buy land cheaply, improve it, then sell it for profit,’ Joseph’s father had told him proudly, summarising this economic activity.

During his one decade of life, Joseph had watched the land to the east of the abbey being developed in this way. He admired this improvement in the land, just as he loved Lincolnshire’s countryside and its changing seasons.

If only he could live here all year round, rather than having to go away to school for so much of the year. One day, he hoped, he would be able to do so.

Two

25 September, 1755

‘Stand!’

They all rose. The gowned Eton headmaster, Dr Barnard, gripped the edges of the lectern, then waited for total silence. His expression was severe.

‘Be seated.’

They obeyed. Joseph was near the front, on one of the bench seats. Alongside him was a fair-haired boy he didn’t know, who had just nodded brusquely at him after he sat down. The walls of the hall were lined with wooden panels tanned with age; portraits of former provosts and headmasters hung on the wall above the podium. Looking down at his desktop, Joseph saw routed into it the declaration: Headmaster Keate is a fustylugs. Suppressing a grin, Joseph returned his attention to the current headmaster. Dr Barnard spoke gravely and at length, about the college’s history. Its founding by Henry VI in 1440 and its steady growth over the centuries. He concluded, ‘…until this year, when the college boasts a roll of nearly 300 pupils.’

When the headmaster had completed his solemn introduction and swept from the room, gown trailing, Joseph paid more attention to the boy next to him. He was about his age—thirteen—but noticeably smaller than Joseph. He had a full face, a pointed nose and a well-shaped chin. Fixing Joseph with strikingly blue eyes, he held out a hand. ‘Phipps, Constantine.’ Joseph took it. ‘Banks, Joseph.’ He stood up. ‘Let’s go outside, shall we?’

They sat on a bench in the Provost’s Garden, a landscaped area near the front of the college. The garden was overlooked by Eton’s red brick, cathedral-like main building. To one side of the building, the courts were filled with boys playing fives. It was late afternoon and already there was a chill in the air.

The boys talked. Phipps had been at Eton a year already and affected an air of knowing all there was to know about the school.

‘The lessons are mostly boring. The classrooms over-crowded, too. I mean, two hundred in a class, how can anyone learn anything amid such a crowd?’ He tugged at his shirt collar. ‘You’re an Oppidan, I presume,’ he asked Joseph. This referred to the boys whose wealthy parents paid fees for them to attend the college. The rest were on scholarships.

‘Yes. And you?’ Joseph too began to pull at his stiff collar. It was so damnably uncomfortable, but his mother had insisted he always wear it.

‘Yes, another Oppidan.’

‘I’m from Whitby. My father is the second Baron Mulgrave. Our estate’s in Yorkshire.’ He gave Joseph a hooded look. ‘And yours?’

‘Lincolnshire. Revesby Abbey estate.’

Phipps cocked his head. ‘Oh. Your father’s titled?’

‘No.’ The question had discomfited him, so he added by way of amelioration, ‘But my mother’s sister is married to the Earl of Exeter. And my mother is an heiress.’

Phipps nodded. ‘Mmm. And what is the size of your estate?’

‘Three thousand acres. My grandfather bought the abbey from Henry Howard, the 11th Earl of Suffolk.’

Phipps grunted, then asked, ‘Will you inherit?’

‘Oh yes. I’m the only son. I have just one sister. Sarah.’

‘I see.’ Phipps considered this for a moment, then said, ‘Have you ever fucked with a girl?’

Taken aback slightly, Joseph replied, ‘No. But I’ve seen my sister’s cunny. Have you ever fucked with a girl?’

‘Not yet. And I don’t have a sister.’ Returning to the subject of his lineage, he said, ‘In time I will be the third Baron Mulgrave.’

Having established their respective pedigrees and sexual histories, Joseph and Phipps chatted further. When Joseph reported that his teaching master was Edward Young, Phipps nodded approvingly. ‘He’s a better teacher than most.’ He pulled a face. ‘The others all think they only have to sit and recite their boring Greek and Latin verbs to us, without making any more effort to teach than that.’

Joseph nodded glumly. They sat in silence for a few moments, then Joseph asked, ‘Who do you fag for, Phipps?’

‘Sanderson. From the upper sixth. His father’s an Earl, he keeps reminding me. He baits me. Birches me, too.’ He stood up, pulled down his trousers, bent down and presented his buttocks to Joseph. His milk white backside was striped with red welts.

Joseph drew in breath, sharply. ‘Gosh. When did that happen?’

‘Yesterday. Because I hadn’t polished Sanderson’s boots well enough.’ Hauling up his trousers, he asked. ‘Who do you fag for?’

‘Kiddle. Lower sixth. He makes me clean his dirty boots and make his bed. But he doesn’t birch me.’ He paused. ‘So far.’

Phipps made another face. ‘You’re lucky, you’re tall, you won’t get baited. It’s the smaller ones, like me, who get bullied.’ He looked as if he was going to cry. Brow creased with concern, Joseph said, ‘Next time he does, let me know and I’ll step in and help you.’

‘Oh, I say, thanks.’ He swallowed. ‘But you just have to put up with the fagging, it’s part of Eton’s tradition.’

Not one to be proud of, Joseph thought. At Harrow, there had been little bullying and hardly any fagging. To change this disagreeable subject, he asked, ‘Will you go to Oxford or Cambridge?’

‘Neither. I’m signing with the King’s navy.’

‘Really?’

This was a surprising admission. The navy? That was certainly different. No one in the Banks family had ever been seafarers, as far as Joseph knew, even though Revesby was not that far from the sea.

Phipps explained. ‘My uncle, my father’s older brother, is the Honourable Augustus John Hervey. He’s a navy post captain. He’s encouraging me to go before the mast.’

Phipps was determined to leave Eton early, he told Joseph, and enlist as a midshipman, preferably on a ship of the line commanded by his uncle. Then he would work his way up to a commissioned rank. He grinned. ‘So Greek and Latin are not going to be much use on the quarterdeck.’ He tweaked his nose. ‘How about you?’

‘Oxford, I suppose,’ Joseph replied, lamely. He envied this confident young man who already seemed to have worked out what to do with his life. Whereas Joseph had no idea yet what he wanted to do with his. Getting to his feet, he said, ‘Come on, let’s walk by the river until supper.’

Eton was not as bad as Joseph had at first feared. The school’s three terms—illogically called halves—passed relatively quickly. He and Phipps became chums. Dr Barnard, although a disciplinarian, was not an ardent flogger like his sadistic predecessor, Keate. Barnard’s reputation as a teacher who fostered learning—albeit with massed classes—meant that Eton’s roll soon grew to exceed 500. Joseph enjoyed the games, including cricket and fives and his natural skill in these earned him the respect of his schoolmates. In his case, the fagging was bothersome but non-violent, the puny Kiddle realising that Joseph was physically by far his superior. Rowing on the river took up considerable time, but that too he enjoyed because it took him to its outer reaches and he was able to observe the ducks, swans and wading birds that lived among the sedge.

Academically however, he remained undistinguished. By his second year, he had learned to convert English expressions into Latin but was less successful in turning a Latin author’s work into English. Greek remained an enigma.

Joseph’s assumption that there would be a paucity of wildflowers in the countryside surrounding Eton was misplaced. There were, he discovered on ambles during the weekends, even more wildflowers than there were in Lincolnshire. This he thought must be because of the more low-lying and therefore better-watered nature of the land adjacent to the Thames. Certainly, the land was rich in wildlife.

Before long he was able to identify, collect and record many specimens of endemic annuals: bird’s foot, bugloss, charlock, hare’s foot clover and the common poppy (although in its colour and delicacy he considered this species anything but common). The perennials were just as prolific: brown sedge, black spleenwort, greater knapweed, marsh foxtail and dwarf thistle all thrived along the public footpaths and banks of the juvenile Thames. Whenever the chance permitted, Joseph escaped the confines of the college and fled to the riverbank, to explore the vegetation and test the river waters with a rod and line. The rod he fashioned from a springy cane of willow, with a butt of blackwood. The fishing was poor though, compared to the waters of the Fenland.

Joseph also unexpectedly made the acquaintance of a group of elderly widows from Windsor village who made a living scouring the meadows for medicinal plants and herbs: dandelions, comfrey, lemon balm, thyme. The women sold the plants to the local apothecaries, but Joseph intercepted them, offering them more than the shopkeepers paid. Liking him for this policy, the women supplied him keenly. Although they had a witch-like manner, he loved receiving new specimens from the old women.

He became the favourite of one crone in particular, Hannah Hadfield.

‘Look at these, Master Banks,’ She held out some long fleshy leaves with prickly edges. ‘Good for healing wounds and diseases of the skin.’

‘Are they?’

She tugged at her lace-edged bonnet. ‘Oh yes. Rub the juice on a wound and it heals proper.’

She handed some over. It was a succulent, with dull green leaves and spiky edges. Joseph tested one with his finger. It was sharp. Watching him closely, Hannah said, ‘Found this one growing by the mill pond, in Thrush Close.’ She screwed up her eyes, cannily. ‘Apothecary pays me a penny a leaf for it.’

‘It’s an interesting specimen, Mistress.’ Joseph took a threepenny piece from his purse and pressed it into her claw-like palm. ‘I shall add the leaves to my collection.’

‘Oh sir, thank you.’ Cackling, she slipped the coin into the pocket of her gown.

Later, he looked up the succulent in a book of plants and quickly identified it as ‘aloe vera.’

Two years after he started at Eton, Joseph’s assistant master, Edward Young, wrote to his father. The schoolmaster’s reports included the statements that: ‘Joseph has learned to spell Latin a great deal more competently than he has learned to spell English,’ and: ‘there is a great Inattention in him and an immoderate love of play.’

The report concluded, however, on a positive note: ‘I really think him a very good-tempered and well-disposed boy.’

In the winter months, the college library became a favourite place of escape, holding as it did many fascinating books that could be browsed. Among these was a leather-bound tome entitled Gerard’s Herbal or The Generall Historie of Plants, compiled by Englishman John Gerard. First published in 1597, in 1632 it had been republished in an expanded edition and this was the copy the Eton College library held. It was illustrated by hundreds of engravings of plants and flowers. Joseph returned to the book at every opportunity, loving the fact that many of the plants featured were ones he had observed and listed in his journal at home. He possessed no skill at drawing himself, although he had often tried. His attempts at flowers all looked like sunflowers and his plants like weeds. Hence, he appreciated the realism and beauty of Gerard’s illustrations, of even the humblest Cow Parsley and Corn Cockle and the informative descriptions that accompanied the drawings.

During the summer break he loved returning to Revesby, taking the coach first to London, then another on the bone-jarring road to Lincoln. From there, Parkyn would meet him in the trap and take him home. Happy to be back in his room with its views of the Fenland, by day he would roam the countryside once more, identifying the flowers he had seen in the Gerard book, fishing in the fens’ waterways and adding to his birds’ egg collection.

Just after he turned 14 and was on his summer break, Joseph’s mother made an unexpected announcement.

‘You are to have your portrait painted, Joseph.’

‘A portrait? Why?’