Talk:Joseph Banks

A fact from this article was featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the On this day section on February 24, 2020.

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I have replaced the language that sought to portray Banks as a sort of father figure presiding over desperate first nation occupiers of land. They were certainly not yearning for invasion. I have recentred the encyclopedia to 1) neutralise the language 2) not abrogate the facts about his high-ranking positions in the Australian government (but I'd recommend celebratory language is avoided here) 3) introduce educated synopsis of the academic view of his activities.

I'd like to make a plea to anyone who spots this promotional language of colonisers to ensure it does not amount to the erasure of facts or promotion of coloniser narrative. This would amount to advocacy. Chambordboy (talk) 19:11, 1 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

"...and some 75 species bear Banks' name.". Would it be stating the obvious to says 75 species of flora? Or is that not correct? — Moondyne 06:39, 13 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

what is "...a grade-II-listed building"? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.51.151.230 (talk) 01:12, 30 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

He can't be born both in Horncastle (on right of page in the infobox) and in London (main text of article). I think it's London (that's what everywhere else says) but.... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 161.112.232.22 (talk) 08:36, 31 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well spotted, the ODNB says 30 Argyll Street, London, so will go with that. DuncanHill (talk) 13:10, 20 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

While reading Patricia Fara's work, I came looking for more on "Botanic Macaroni" but found little in this article on it. Shyamal (talk) 05:28, 14 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This page from The Peerage uses the form 1743/44, which was a commonly seen feature of the Old Style (Julian) calendar for people born in England before 25 March. Hence, it’s clear that "13 February 1743" is an Old Style date. The corresponding New Style (Gregorian) date is 24 February 1743. I propose to edit the lead para as follows:

• Sir Joseph Banks, 1st Baronet, GCB, PRS (24 February [O.S. 13 February] 1743 – 19 June 1820) was ...

Any objections before I proceed? -- JackofOz (talk) 08:53, 20 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds good to me. Hesperian 13:06, 20 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've been somewhat diverted. I've made the edit now. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 02:01, 21 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Why is the book by Carter on His Majesty's Spanish Flock listed as unpublished? It was published in 1964. A copy used to sit on my parents' bookshelves. Also the first biography of Banks, by JH Maiden the Australian botanist, is not listed. Other volumes on Banks (by Smith and Cameron) are also missing.

I agree with your point, and have moved the published books to the Secondary Resources section --CaptainCookFan (talk) 18:28, 10 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

In a review of Toby Musgrave's The Multifarious Mr. Banks: From Botany Bay to Kew, the Natural Historian Who Shaped the World in the London Review of Books, Steven Shapin characterizes a number of works listed in Further Reading: Secondary Resources. He writes: "There was a thorough biography in 1988 by the scientist Harold Carter; Patrick O’Brian’s Life, published a year earlier, was a well-researched and ripping yarn, as you’d expect from the author of the ‘Aubrey/Maturin’ romans fleuves, in which a character based on Banks appears; two excellent accounts from the 1990s by the historian John Gascoigne situated Banks in the context of the English Enlightenment and the empire; Neil Chambers in 2007 contextualised Banks in the history of collecting; Patricia Fara has a rollicking go at Banks as an exploitative imperialist in Sex, Botany and Empire (2003); Banks gets a chapter to himself in Richard Holmes’s much praised The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science (2008)."^[1] These comments are probably not a good fit for the article but perhaps useful in the Talk page, or so I hope. Larry Koenigsberg (talk) 23:21, 30 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Toby Musgrave's book has 39 pages of bilbiography of books, articles, etc. Some of the items might be worth adding to the article, but it is difficult to tell. One book that might be worth adding is Sir Joseph Banks, 1743 – 1820 A guide to biographical and bibliographical sources by Harold B. Carter, St Paul’s Bibliographies, 1987, 0-906795-45-1, 328 pages. CaptainCookFan (talk) 09:02, 31 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I deleted mimosa from the list of plants introduced by Banks to the western world. Since the French astronomer Jean-Jacques d’Ortous de Mairan observed the day and night movements of a mimosa in his own apartment in 1729, thus pioneering chronobiology, it must have been known in Europe before Banks was even born. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.110.216.193 (talk) 19:49, 10 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

BBC tonight (Quizeum) suggests that Banks may have been the first modern European to see tattooing in Polynesia and to receive one of their own to bring back as an example. Any sources for this? Andy Dingley (talk) 22:25, 29 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

There are references to him describing in detail tattooing in Tahiti and in 1770 he did acquire a preserved and tattooed head of a New Zealand Māori. There is no mention of him being tattooed. Seearticle at this link NealeFamily (talk) 01:52, 23 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

First time doing this, apologies if it's wrong - this person is English. I keep seeing the use of Z such as baptized. This is spelt with an S in England. Is there a wiki reference that determines this? Thanks.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 123.208.107.212 (talk • contribs)

The policy is WP:ENGVAR, and the article is marked as using British English. However, British English can use either -ise or -ize, the latter being recommended by the Oxford Dictionary. See MOS:IZE. Any article should be consistent in which variety of English it uses, and this article appears to use -ise consistently other than in "baptized". I suggest you change it, using an edit summary of "Consistent spelling; see talk page".-gadfium 21:57, 28 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I have made the sugested change of baptized to baptised CaptainCookFan (talk) 16:25, 24 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

There seems to be an internal contradiction. In the section on the Endeavour voyage it says

"In 1772, he [Banks} was travelling with James Cook and docked in Simon's Town in what is now South Africa. There, he met Christoffel Brand and a friendship started. He was the godfather of Brand's grandson Christoffel Brand."

This is not physically possible. The voyage of the Endeavour ended in 1771. In 1772 Banks was in England and Iceland, as described in detail in the following section. Presumably the date should be 1771, not 1772.

Another problem with the two sentences is that they are misplaced in terms of the narrative flow-- they should be moved further down several paragraphs, to the end of the journey, when it actually occurred.

Although, a better solution, it seems to me, would be to delete the two sentences altogether. The incident hardly seems of enough importance to be worth mentioning at all. Christoffel Brand is not a well known individual, and Banks' friendship with him hardly seems important enough to be worth mentioning in Banks' biography.

DlronW (talk) 00:52, 30 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hello all, I have removed the following statements which were recently added: "his imposition of western infrastructure and advocacy of his 'new technological way' has been indicted by many academics. Chiefly, this is due to replacing indigenous practice and customs with the Western capitalist ideology. The fallacy of Terra Nullius (land unoccupied) began under this regime, which was a system that stripped first nation people of their property right by treating them as legally invisible. This remained a rule of law until 1992." This is not only factually incorrect, the language is not encyclopaedic and the two sources cited say nothing of the sort and do not even mention Banks. Banks did not impose western infrastructure or "Western capitalist ideology" on anyone. The legal doctrine of Terra nullius did not "begin under this regime", it began in the late nineteenth century as the wikipedia article on the doctrine makes clear. Banks had nothing to do with developing the doctrine. Wikipedia is not a forum for political activism or righting historical wrongs. There might be a case for adding more information on Banks' views on how colonisation would affect the Aboriginal people, but it will need to be factually accurate, balanced, written in neutral language and based on the best available secondary and tertiary sources. The above contribution does not meet any of these criteria. Aemilius Adolphin (talk) 23:03, 5 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I have been watching this article since following a vandal here and have no particular knowledge of the topic. The text you removed was added on 27 April 2021. Please check the diff from how the article was before that time, to how it is now. Johnuniq (talk) 23:43, 5 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think this feature is working correctly in the figure. I don't know how to fix it so I'm just pointing it out here. Afonso Dimas Martins (talk) 22:16, 13 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Not working for me too. Using Monobook, Browser: Edge Version 120.0.2210.61 (Official build) (64-bit) on Win 11. I can't click on the picture either. DuncanHill (talk) 22:33, 13 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]