Kew with a View: of Colonial Roots.

In this essay I plan to look at aspects of Kew in relation to colonialism. These

aspects include plant species in relation to their use for British economy
through commercialised major crops such as rubber and cinchona. But also
the scientific expansion through journeying the globe and colonial networking
of scientific knowledge, the base of which was Kew Gardens.

I will also examine in relation to colonialism, the cultural appropriation of

architecture, chinoiserie art and the chinese pagoda.

Kew Gardens, a sculpted landscape situated along the river Thames, as

picturesque as can be created and crafted by human minds and hands. It is a
well-established and popular destination for Londoners and others from
further afield. Even in autumn it’s busy with school trips, tourists and regulars.

When I first came to Kew the black iron gates immediately struck me. They
were entwined with royal symbols of gold. The peak of the gate, had a gold
crown and at head height, another monarchist symbol of the royal coat of
arms. From the entering or even just before, it is apparent that there is a royal
air to the gardens, not to mention the gate itself is named Elizabeth Gate, Kew
has been a site of royalty since the 16th century (http://www.british-
history.ac.uk/vch/surrey/vol3/pp482-487) and continued to house (in a palace)
the royal family. Prince Frederick and Princess Augusta had had a garden
here and recruited William Aiton gardener, botanist and director of the
gardens in 1759 (http://www.kew.org/press/factsheets/Kew%20Timeline.pdf).
The revival of Kew came at the Victorian period with scientific research in
botany which became so connected with economy and essential to the British
empire and a base of botanical knowledge for other botanists throughout the
colonies, who sent plants and seeds back to Kew for further research.

From this point on, it is scientific exploration in botany at Kew, which I will
explore and it’s relation to empire. As I walked and absorbed Kew’s plants
and some of the historical information of plants, there was something of a
‘whitewash’ of the information at hand. Yes the words “empire” and “colonies”
were there but ‘forced labour’ and ‘extracting natural resources’ (leaving the
native population bereft of there own resources) was not. This is the image of
empire, which was not evident at Kew.

However, the expansion of scientific botany was a great source of income for
the British Empire as the industry of plants and plant products, such as rubber
and quinine would become incredibly useful, Endersby (2001) to fulfil duties in
Britain with the advent of the bicycle and automobile, rubber was needed for
tires, while quinine was used for malaria treatment for the colonisers who
would often succumb to the disease, which would have been a negative in
terms of economics had they’re explorers died of malaria, so large scale
production of quinine was essential to maintaining empire.

Quinine is a by-product of the cinchona bark and one of the first

pharmaceutical drugs to be globalised, Goss (2013). The botanists at Kew
wanted to grow the cinchona tree and acclimatise it in other parts of the
empire, in effect to strengthen and expand the power of the empire, Goss
(2013), it would seem fitting to grow the only malaria treatment known, readily
available in as many parts of the empire as possible but acclimatisation of
cinchona and at the same time attempting to grow it rich in quinine proved too
difficult and the acclimatisation project failed in Britain, Goss (2013). It is
argued by Goss (2013) that the story of quinine is a Dutch success and that
Britain’s role in quinine was simply a colonial commodity, which couldn’t out
do the greater commodities like sugar and tea, as well as the collapse of the
cinchona plantations in the 1880s, Goss (2013).

There was a great despoiling of land in the Amazon, along with seed, seedling
and plant poaching which led to the banning of taking these natural items out
of the countries of Bolivia and Ecuador, with penalties and protection laws
imposed to save their export which was a source of income for the newly
liberated countries, Brockway (1979). However, a noted Kew botanist
Richard Spruce propagated the plants himself while bivouacking in the Andes,
which Brockway (1979) has noted may have technically placed him inside of
the law and he shipped them back to Kew. Kew had sent out a number of
collectors to procure plants and ship them back, a joint effort by Kew Gardens
and the India-office notes Brockway (1979) which included with every
collector two Kew gardeners and a £500 budget, Brockway (1979).

Seeds and seedlings of cinchona were shipped to Kew for experimentation,

as well as to hold a reserve supply but many of the seeds were transported to
other locations of the empire, Brockway (1979) and in these colonies were the
mistreatment and neglect of the natives as Brockway (1979) noted that
Canarese and Tamils were brought up toward the Nilgiris highlands of India to
work on plantations as cinchona where the climate for cinchona was like that
of the Andes, cold and damp, however according to Brockway (1979) the
Tamils and Canarese were not adapted to this climate and so sickened and
died under the British neglect.

A major cash crop was the rubber plant, originally resourced from Brazil
(Brockway, 1979) and with another Kew Gardens – India Office venture,
smuggled the seeds of the Hevea plant out of Brazil with the help of plant
collector Henry Wickham employed by Kew (Brockway, 1979) and managed
to smuggle “seventy thousand Hevea seeds” (Brockway, 1979, p458). The
seeds were dispensed to other botanical gardens but Henry Ridley a Kew
trained director of Ceylon botanic gardens of Malay had the greater success
of syphoning the latex from the tree and John Parkin used acid to congeal the
latex, a cleaner production method than that of the indigenous smoking
method (Brockway, 1979). These developments in botany have been
intimately connected to the economic aspect of the empire, which resulted in
plantations of the Hevea tree and the uprooting of previous cash crop
commodities.

These crops, while good for empire, had negative effects for other nations of
the original plant and by-products, as Brockway (1979) notes the Brazilian
rubber industry died because Britain had a hold on the rubber production
which could not be matched because of the empires vast acres specifically in
use for cash crops.
This brings us to the inhuman consequences of colonial activity, because of
low population, that in turn produced labour shortage in the Amazon, where
according to Brockway (1979) the best rubber naturally grew. This instigated
the coercing of indigenous peoples into servitude, as rubber tappers
(Brockway, 1979). The exploitation of slavery and abuse resulted in deaths of
so many indigenous societies, ‘genocide’ was “partially documented in the
British Government Blue Book 1912 and 1913” (Brockway, 1979, p.459). The
abhorrent scene of enslaved indigenes was documented in a photograph from
the book ‘The Putumayo, the Devil’s Paradise’ written in 1912.

While in South and South East Asia there was an abundance of labour, from
migrating Tamils who were mentioned earlier in relation to their suffering and
dying from neglect, originally working on coffee plantations (Brockway, 1979).
To this end the arduous work and poor living conditions, Brockway (1979)
notes that 250 per 1000 Tamils died each year. Britain had a system of
moving their crops from the original/natural source and successfully creating
plantations in labour abundant areas of the empire and through botanic
development at Kew it was an economic achievement as well as a scientific
success. Originally using the native knowledge and labour, ecologists were
in an excellent position to gain knowledge on the local vegetation, which
would be useful for further scientific development at Kew and which Anker
(2001) notes ecologists research was connected to colonial institutions. While
Arthur Tansley the president of the British Ecological Society believed this
research in botany and ecology could further develop the empire (Anker,
2001). Assistant Director of Kew Thomas Ford Chipp viewed Kew as the
image of success, commercially and as an empire (Anker, 2001).

Even the writings of ecological research in colonies were written in a colonial

fashion, an excerpt from ‘Imperial Psychology to ecology’ shows the colonial
confidence in stating vegetation as…
“Plants establish themselves on soil ‘prepared’ for them, higher forms of
plants “kill out the lowly pioneers”, and establish new plant “associations”,
kingdoms, societies, clans and colonies and certain species dominate these
communities” This form of language notes Anker (2001) was attractive to the
colonial administration.

While at Kew, there was a building of particular interest to me and is one of

the most famous. The Pagoda is a token of the British imagination of the
orient, designed by architect William Chambers who was an advocate of the
chinoiserie style and what Said (1977) says on orientalism is that is a way of
understanding the orient through a Euro-Western perspective and has in turn
helped define the occident.

Chinoiserie is a term used to describe a Euro-Chinese decorative style. While

it was short lived it was the vogue at the time and can still be seen throughout
England in other public gardens. One of the best examples is at Kew, where
the Pagoda stands ten stories high. According to Zuo (2004) it has been
compared to and often cited as being influenced by the Porcelain Tower of
Nanjing, China. First drawn in the book ‘An Embassy from the East India
Company’ by John Nieuhoff, Nieuhoff (1693).

The reason for bringing the pagoda into this essay, is not for the sake of itself
but to illustrate the appropriation of culture as with the botany the
appropriation of native skills and knowledge. It is an illustration of colonialism,
the dominant power selecting what is deemed useful i.e. plants and skills or
beautiful i.e. the Chinese pagoda.
References

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Brockway, L.H. . (1979). Science and Colonial Expansion: The Role of the
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Endersby, J. (2001). Joseph Hooker: the making of a botanist.Endeavour. 25

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