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

该项目聚焦于著名的贵妇和植物学收藏家博福特公爵夫人玛丽·萨默塞特(1630-1715)和牛津植物园第二负责人雅各布·鲍巴特(1641-1719年)之间的关系(跟随他的父亲，老雅各布·鲍巴特)。在波巴特的花园和公爵夫人在羽毛球的花园之间进行了大量的植物学材料、信息和专业知识的交流。该项目将利用手稿和草药记录对这些交易进行前所未有的详细分析。因此，学生将阐明牛津植物园早期历史的关键方面，重点是支持17世纪后期植物收藏和制度结构发展的物质和智力网络。因此，研究将直接补充对OBGA遗产的关注，为2021年植物园400周年的庆祝做准备。虽然学者们对公爵夫人对植物学和园艺的赞助卓有成效，但对牛津大学草药和自然历史博物馆等地幸存下来的特定植物标本(和相关档案文件)的研究很少。该项目将纠正这一学术遗漏，意识到马克·莱尔德的富有启发性的评论，即如果没有这样的工作，我们只有一段关于花卉领域非常重要的赞助人的初步和推测的历史(《英国园艺自然史》，2015)。关注波巴特和公爵夫人之间的关系也使该项目能够强调女性在植物学网络和知识形成中的作用。尽管玛丽在社会和经济方面享有不同寻常的特权，但她是一个有价值的案例研究，揭示了那个时期女性是如何作为自然科学的贡献者参与进来的。公爵夫人的女性身份和同辈妻子的身份对她与园艺工人和植物学者的关系有何影响？她在多大程度上让其他女性参与了她的植物学网络，她们对其社会、知识和经济结构做出了什么贡献？在这个项目挖掘的更广泛的植物学交流网络中，鲍巴特与公爵夫人的关系是核心。两人都积极与植物学专家和供应商建立联系，包括机构中心(尤其是切尔西物理花园和皇家学会)；个人收藏家，如威廉·谢拉德(他通过捐赠舍拉第植物学主席，为花园带来了重要的经济保障)、汉斯·斯隆和伦纳德·普卢克内；以及商业园艺家，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，以收购英国和全球各地的新工厂并对其进行分类？结果是什么植物学知识和园艺技能产生(和/或中断)？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，这项研究对牛津大学理解其机构遗产具有重要意义。科尔将重新连接花园历史的储存库，包括OBGA的特定地点材料，赫巴里亚大学的植物材料，以及Bodleian的手稿。通过为研究目的绘制这些资源的地图--以便早期现代植物、印刷品和论文重新参与对话--博士生也将能够通过了解植物园档案在其他地方的分散和重组来解释植物园后来的机构命运(在18世纪和20世纪之间)。还将咨询相关的外部储存库，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.