Other Joseph Banks collections around the world
When Sir Joseph Banks died in 1820, he left behind a well organised archive which documented his influential career. The custodial history of the archive following Banks' death is confused. Most of it was eventually deposited in the British Museum, probably around 1873, only to be removed in 1880 by Edward Knatchbull-Hugessen, later Lord Brabourne, the nephew of Lady Banks. The papers were returned to Brabourne who subsequently offered them for purchase to the British Museum for 250 pounds. When the Museum declined, the dispersal of the archive began with the sale of some of the papers in 1884. The papers of Sir Joseph Banks can be found all around the world.
The following list is a record of those repositories with ten or more Banks items of reasonable significance as listed in H.B. Carter's Sir Joseph Banks (1743-1820) : a guide to biographical and bibliographical sources, further information on each collection can be found in this volume.
Where possible links to specific collections have been included, where this was not possible general links to institutions and collections have been supplied. (links were correct as of 1 September 2017)
1. The British Library, Great Russell Street, London, WC 1.
3. The Royal Society of London, 6 Carlton House Terrace, London SW1.
4. The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Richmond, Surrey.
5. The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.
6. Lincolnshire Archive Office, The Castle, Lincoln.
7. Kent Archives Office, Maidstone, Kent.
8. Buckinghamshire Record Office, Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire.
9. Derbyshire Record Office, Matlock, Derbyshire.
10. Herefordshire Record Office, Hereford.
11. The National Library of Scotland, George IV Bridge, Edinburgh.
12. The National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth.
13. The Bodleian Library, Oxford.
14. The University of London, Senate House Library, Malet Street, London WC1.
15. The University of London, School of Oriental and African Studies, Malet Street, London WC1.
16. The University Library, West Road, Cambridge.
17. The Lyon-Playfair Library, Imperial College, University of London, South Kensington, London SW1.
18. The Library, Trinity College, Cambridge University, Cambridge.
19. The Library, University of Reading, Whiteknights, Reading, Berkshire.
20. The Library, University of Keele, Keele, Staffordshire.
21. The Linnean Society of London, Burlington House, Piccadilly, London W1.
22. The Royal Astronomical Society, Archive Centre, Churchill College Cambridge.
23. The National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London SE10.
24. The Spencer Papers, Muniment Room, Althorp, Northampton. (This collection was sold to the British Library).
25. The Sandwich Papers, Mapperton House, Mapperton, Dorset. (This collection was transferred to the National Library of Australia, Canberra, ACT)
26. The Central Libraries, Birmingham.
27. Whitby Museum, Whitby, Humberside.
28. India Office Library and Records, Blackfriars Road, London SE1.
In 1982 the India Office Library and Records were transferred to the British Library from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office: these contained the entire archives of British India from the foundation of the East India Company in 1600 to independence.
29. Public Record Office, Ruskin Avenue, Kew, Richmond, Surrey, and Chancery Lane, London WC2. (PRO)
30. Boston Reference Library, Boston, Lincolnshire.
31. Sutro Library, Golden Gate Avenue at Temescal, 2130 Fulton Av., San Francisco, California, USA.
32. Yale University Library, New Haven, Connecticut, USA. (UY)
(a) Sterling Memorial Library, Historical Manuscripts Collection.
(b) Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Osborn Manuscript Collection.
33. The American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.
34. University of Wisconsin Memorial Library, Rare Book Department, Madison 6, Wilsonsin, USA.
35. The New York Public Library, New York, USA.
36. University of California Library, Los Angeles, California, USA.
37. The Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation, Carnegie-Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA.
38. The Hyde Collection, Four Oaks Farm, 350 Burnt Mills Road, Somerville, New Jersey 08876, USA (This collection was transferred to Harvard University in 2004).
39. Morgan Library and Museum New York 16, New York, USA.
40. The New York Historical Society, 170 Central Park West, New York 24, New York, USA.
41. Boston Public Library, Boston, Massachusetts, USA. http://archon.bpl.org/
42. McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
43. The National Library of Australia, Canberra, ACT, Australia
44. The Royal Geographical Society of Australasia (South Australia Branch Inc.), North Terrace, Adelaide, South Australia.
45. The Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand.
46. Niedersachssische Staats-und Universitatsbibliothek Gottingen, 34 Gottingen, Prinzenstrass 1, Federal Republic of Germany.
47. Stockholm Universitetsbibliothek, S-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden.
48. Uppsala Universitets-Bibliothek, Box 510, 751 20 Uppsala, Sweden.
49. Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal, Kolkatta, West Bengal, Republic of India.
Other resources
Scientific Correspondence of Sir Joseph Banks 1765–1820, N. Chambers (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2007) 6 vols.
The letters of Sir Joseph Banks : a selection, 1768-1820 / edited by Neil Chambers ; foreword by David Mabberley ; introduction by Harold Carter (London: Imperial College Press, 2000).
Sir Joseph Banks (1743-1820) : a guide to biographical and bibliographical sources / by Harold B. Carter (Winchester, UK : St Paul's Bibliographies in association with British Museum Natural History, 1987)