The Duchess of Botany: Mary Somerset, Jacob Bobart, and the Formation of the Oxford Botanic Garden

这个项目的重点是玛丽萨默塞特，博福特公爵夫人（1630-1715年），一个著名的贵族妇女和植物收藏家，和雅各布博巴特年轻（1641- 1719年），第二次主管植物园在牛津大学（以下他的父亲，雅各布博巴特老）之间的关系。博巴特的花园和羽毛球公爵夫人的花园之间进行了大量的植物材料，信息和专业知识交流。该项目将利用手稿和植物标本记录，以前所未有的详细程度分析这些交易。因此，该奖学金将阐明牛津植物园早期历史的关键方面，重点关注支持其植物收藏和机构结构在十七世纪后期发展的物质和知识网络。因此，研究将直接补充对OBGA遗产的关注，为2021年庆祝植物园成立400周年做准备。虽然学者们积极参与了公爵夫人对植物学和园艺的赞助，但对牛津大学植物标本馆和自然历史博物馆中幸存的特定植物标本（和相关档案文件）的研究很少。这个项目将纠正这一学术疏漏，意识到马克·莱尔德（Mark Laird）的启发性观察，即如果没有这样的工作，我们就拥有了“花卉领域中一个非常重要的赞助人的初步和历史”（英国园艺自然史，2015）。关注博巴特和公爵夫人之间的关系也使该项目能够强调妇女在植物网络和知识形成中的作用。虽然玛丽在社会和经济方面享有特殊的特权，但她是一个有价值的案例研究，可以揭示这一时期的妇女如何为自然科学做出贡献。公爵夫人作为女性的身份和贵族妻子的地位如何影响她与园艺工人和植物学者的关系？她在多大程度上让其他女性参与到她的植物学网络中，她们对这个网络的社会、知识和经济结构做出了什么贡献？博巴特与公爵夫人的关系是该项目挖掘的更广泛的植物交流网络的核心。两者都与植物学专家和供应商有着积极的联系，包括机构中心（最重要的是切尔西植物园和皇家学会）;个人收藏家，如威廉·谢拉德（他通过捐赠植物学的谢拉德主席为植物园带来了重要的财政保障）、汉斯·斯隆和伦纳德·普鲁克内;以及商业园丁，如乔治伦敦和托马斯费尔柴尔德。这些利益相关者如何合作和竞争，以获得和分类来自英国和地球仪的新工厂？因此，产生（和/或破坏）了什么植物学知识和园艺技能？早期牛津植物园作为植物学和园艺中心的作用和意义是什么？除了这些历史问题，这项研究有助于重要的牛津大学的了解其制度遗产。科尔将重新连接库，讲花园的历史，包括网站特定的材料在OBGA，植物在大学植物标本馆的问题，并在博德利安手稿。通过绘制这些资源用于研究目的-使早期现代植物，印刷品和论文重新参与对话-博士生也将能够通过了解其档案在其他地方的分散和重组来解释植物园后来的制度命运（18世纪和20世纪之间）。还将咨询相关的外部存储库，包括大英图书馆，自然历史博物馆和羽毛球博物馆。

This project focuses on the relationship between Mary Somerset, Duchess of Beaufort (1630-1715), a prominent noblewoman and botanical collector, and Jacob Bobart the younger (1641- 1719), second superintendent of the Botanic Garden at Oxford (following his father, Jacob Bobart the elder). Substantial exchanges of botanical material, information, and expertise were undertaken between the Garden under Bobart and the Duchess's gardens at Badminton. The project will leverage manuscript and herbaria records to analyse these transactions in unprecedented detail. As such, the studentship will elucidate key aspects of the Oxford Botanic Garden's early history, focusing on the material and intellectual networks that supported the development of its plant collections and institutional structures during the later seventeenth century. Research will therefore directly complement attention to OBGA's heritage in preparation for celebrating the Botanic Garden's 400th anniversary in 2021.While scholars have attended productively to the Duchess's patronage of botany and horticulture, little research has been conducted into the specific plant specimens (and associated archival documents) that survive inter alia at Oxford University Herbaria and the Natural History Museum. This project will rectify that scholarly omission, conscious of Mark Laird's instructive observation that without such work we possess 'only a preliminary and conjectural history of a very significant patron in the realm of flowers' (A Natural History of English Gardening, 2015). Focusing on the relationship between Bobart and the Duchess also enables the project to emphasise the roles of women in the formation of botanical networks and knowledge. Although Mary was unusually privileged in social and economic terms, she functions as a valuable case-study for uncovering how women during the period engaged as contributors to natural science. How did the Duchess's identity as a woman and status as the wife of a peer impact her relationships with horticultural labourers and botanical scholars? To what extent did she involve other women in her botanical network, and what contribution did they make to its social, intellectual, and economic structures? Bobart's relationship with the Duchess is central within broader networks of botanical exchange that this project excavates. Both were actively connected to botanical experts and suppliers, including institutional centres (above all, the Chelsea Physic Garden and the Royal Society); individual collectors, like William Sherard (who importantly brought financial security to the Garden via his endowment of the Sherardian Chair of Botany), Hans Sloane, and Leonard Plukenet; and commercial gardeners such as George London and Thomas Fairchild. How did these stakeholders collaborate and compete to acquire and categorise new plants from across Britain and the globe? What botanical knowledge and horticultural skill was generated (and/or disrupted) as a consequence? What was the early Oxford Botanic Garden's role and significance as a centre of botany and horticulture?In addition to these historical questions, this research contributes importantly to Oxford University's understanding of its institutional heritage. Cole will reconnect repositories that speak to the Garden's history, including site-specific materials at OBGA, botanical matter in the University Herbaria, and manuscripts at the Bodleian. By mapping these resources for research purposes - so that early-modern plants, print, and papers are re-engaged in dialogue together - the doctoral candidate will also be enabled to account for the later institutional fortunes of the Botanic Garden (between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries) through understanding the dispersal and reorganisation of its archive elsewhere. Relevant external repositories will also be consulted, including the British Library, Natural History Museum, and Badminton Muniments.