The Botanical and Meteorological history of the Indian Ocean 1500-1900

Building on the earlier network grant on the Botanical and Meteorological history of the Indian Ocean which included holding institutions such as libraries and museums and academics this proposal aims to develop public engagement and reach new audiences and user communities by staging 2 exhibitions and other related events linked by the theme of science and empire and Indian botanical heritage. 1.The first will be a major exhibition on the life and work of the botanist J.D.Hooker and India in the year of his bi-centenary, 2017, at the Indian Museum in Kolkata, India. This exhibition highlights the impact of the network by building on a collaboration between Kew, the BSI, the Indian Museum and CWEH at the University of Sussex. Hooker was the director of Kew (1865-1885) at a time when botany, and the network of botanical gardens, centered on Kew, played a major role in the project of British imperialism. He traveled extensively in India and was the main author of the Flora of British India (1872-97), the only flora of India yet published. The exhibition itself will be based on facsimiles of the exhibition previously developed at Kew, adapted and augmented with collections from the BSI, and other Indian institutions, which hold materials relating to Hooker. 2. The second exhibition entitled, 'Science and Empire' curated by the BL will produce a facsimile 'pop-up' exhibition, which will be hosted at the NMNH in Delhi. Modelled on the Library's successful touring exhibition, this exhibition will comprise nine attractively-designed panels of facsimile materials drawn from the Library's historic collections of India Office Records, private papers, books and manuscripts in Indian languages, and visual materials. The panels will cover the following themes: forestry; health and disease; irrigation; botany; geology; built environment. Displaying facsimiles of personal diaries and correspondence, government documents, maps, plans, pamphlets, photographs, paintings and drawings, the panels will create a picture of the impact of empire upon the natural and built environment of India over the period 1700 to 1950. The Library's holdings in this area are complemented by collections in India.The British Council will be invited to arrange the practicalities as they have facilitated an earlier exhibition by the BL and has already expressed support for this kind of flexible exhibition. It is expected that the exhibition will tour in Cochin and Mysore. 3. The opening of the Kolkata exhibition will be marked by a public conference with contributions from international speakers working in related disciplines. Both the exhibition and the conference will highlight the importance of India, Indian institutions and people in the development of scientific botany and its centrality to the project of colonialism, while increasing knowledge of, and engagement with India's botanical heritage among Indian academics, school students and the general public. 4.There will be the involvement of two local schools in a pilot project to engage school children by making them aware of the natural history collecting practices of the British Empire, the co-construction of of botanical knowledge by local communities in India and interesting them in the conservation of endangered flora of South Asia. The timing of the event, in Hooker's bi-centennial year will allow the exhibition and conference to both benefit from and contribute to, the significant publicity which will accompany this anniversary in the U.K. This project capitalizes on the work done under the auspices of the previously funded Network for Collaborative Research on the Botanical and Meteorological History of the Indian Ocean, 1600-1900, with the primary aims of disseminating research beyond the academy reversing both the accumulation of the materials of scientific research and narratives of knowledge production from Britain to the global south.