A Little History

(IMAGE of Botany School)

In its early years a desperate need for space characterised the former Botany Department. Temporary space had been provided for the department by alterations to the Macleay Museum between 1914 and 1918, but the Museum had been purpose built to house the Macleay Natural History Collections and was not ideal for teaching. The construction of the Botany extension in 1925, as a result of extensive lobbying by the department´s first head Abercrombie Anstruther Lawson, added a permanent and suitable home for the expanding department.

Designed by the University´first Professor of Architecture, Professor Leslie Wilkinson, the new building, from the outside, resembled a late medieval college to complement the original University buildings. Moreover, gargoyles sitting on the exterior buttresses pay homage to prominent scientists Hofmeister, Mendel and Darwin. (IMAGE) Inside it offered modern facilities including four large laboratories, six small reading rooms, a library and a herbarium containing over 10000 study specimens.

The herbarium originally had an open plan with a "well lighted and comfortable " library and reading room and a gallery at first floor level. It also contained a small museum known as the Benthem and Hooker Botanical Museum. The interior of the roof has robust cross-beams of maple. The upper level has since been filled in to create two floors. The Eric Ashby Audio-Visual Laboratory, is upstairs directly above the present herbarium.

An interesting feature of the room is the stained glass windows showing images of prominent Botanists including John Ray 1627-1705, William Jackson Hooker 1785-1865 and Robert Morison 1620-83. The pamphlet advertising the opening of the new Botany School in 1925 makes special mention of an English "expert " employed to stain the windows "using a secret process which is said to be precisely the same as that employed by the Greeks and Romans. Because of the way in which they have been executed they will never fade ". It was a secret best kept to himself. The windows have now faded!

For more information on the history of the building you can visit the "Upstairs Downstairs " Exhibition in the western foyer of the Macleay Building or use this link.