Mucklestone -historical | Plant Nurseries Kent and Staffordshire

Please follow this link for a powerpoint https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dfdCSqreSj6mXuqvdX_pbCQFjsrgILq4/view

presentation by Alastair Land , headmaster of Harrow School, on the explorations of Sir Joseph Banks , Charles Darwin and others. These are two particular heros of mine . Banks was from a lincolnshire estate . He was a pioneering naturalist and botanist, who studied at Harrow and Christ Church, Oxford (and elsewhere!) , named Australia’s Botany Bay and set up Kew Gardens as the unique institution it is today.

Darwin , was grandson of Staffordshire ‘Lunar men’ , Josiah Wedgewood and Erasmus Darwin , who’s enquiring minds and free thinking helped change the world forever. C Darwin spent his summers with his Wedgewood cousins shooting and ‘botanising’ in woods and meadows near Maer Hall , just over the hill from Mucklestone.

Both travelled the world as young men , in a way that shaped their ideas and theories for the rest of their lives .

Well done Alastair , an inspiring talk for young men!

The Sir Joseph Banks School Prize for Science has been awarded to my nephew , Freddie Murley , at the Park , who will be starting to read biology at Oxford this autumn . He is grandson of the president of the Royal College of surgeons , Sir Reginald Murley . Well done Freddie, in the words of the Harrow School Song .. ‘..you’re living up to the giants of old you know ‘ !