Note on Wolfe Collection

NOTE ON THE THOMAS BIRCH WOLFE COLLECTION

By Miss M. MURIEL WHITING In 1952, a large and beautifully prepared collection of European and North African plant specimens was presented on permanent loan to the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, by the Committee of Ipswich Museum. Nothing was known of its history, save that is was received at the Museum in 1886, and entered on the records as the Thomas Birch Wolfe Collection.

Labels attached to each specimen bore the plant's scientific name, the locality where collected and the date. But the collector's name was absent except where the specimen had been acquired from other sources. These included the Botanic Gardens at Geneva, several well-known botanists, and some mountain guides.

Nearly all the specimens had been labelled by a single individual, presumably by Thomas Birch Wolfe or someone closely associated with him. But the handwriting in the large number of notebooks attached to the collection varied considerably from that on the labels, which was small and neat, to an older looking, sloping writing, and the variations were often on the same page and even the same line.

In view of the quality and importance of the collection it was natural that the authorities at Kew should wish to know more of its history. Since no information could be found in Britten and Boulger or similar sources, the writer, who is often at Ipswich, was asked to make local enquiries. Her sources of information are :— 1. The late Mr. Charles Partridge of Stowmarket who kindly replied to a letter from Miss Copinger Hill of Saxmundham in the East Anglian Daily Times.

2.

Ipswich Public Library : County Directories.

3.

T h e Dictionary of National Biography.

4.

Somerset House.

Thomas Birch Wolfe was born in 1801, third and youngest son of the Rev. Richard Birch*, sometime rector of Widdington and Bradwell-juxta-Mare, Essex. * T h e Rev. Richard Birch was very possibly son of T h o m a s Birch, rector o f p a r i s h e s in Essex and Suffolk, w h o was an F . R . S . , and secretary of that Society, 1752 - 1765.

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In 1820 his father died ; in 1831 he married Miss Eliza Vernon of Turin, grand daughter (or great grand daughter) of George Vernon of Sudbury, Suffolk, Ist Baron.* Her brother (or nephew) the 5th Lord Vernon, lived in Florence and published a translation of the Dante Tracts.

In 1849 the botanical collection seems to have been started and between then and 1866 some 3 - 4,000 specimens were acquired, many by purchase or gift, but very many were personally collected all over Central Europe, Gibraltar, Algiers, etc. A very few came from England, odd ones from Brighton, Folkestone, Newhaven, being added at two periods in the 1850's, and at least one in 1872.

Some time before 1869, Thomas Birch assumed the name of Wolfe on succeeding to the estate of Wood Hall, in Arkesden, Essex, which had belonged to John Lewis Wolfe. His eldest brother Richard (before 1848) and his second brother William, a clergyman (before 1862) had preceded him, and each in turn assumed the name of Wolfe.

In 1880 Thomas Birch Wolfe died, his death being registered at Steyning near Brighton. In 1883 the Wood Hall estate was in the hands of the John Lewis Wolfe Trustees, all three brothers having apparently died without issue.

But in 1885 a few specimens were added to the collection from the neighbourhood of Ipswich, where in fact the collection was deposited in 1886 at the Museum. At that time the present Museum buildings in High Street had just been built, and the transition from the old Museum Street premises may account for no details of the deposit having been made.

Various facts point to the possibility that Mrs. Thomas Birch Wolfe was collaborator, if not indeed prime mover, in the collection.

Besides the Variation in handwriting, one of these facts is the marginal note at the side of one of the many MS note books " T.B. By lake at foot of Monte Bego, Piedmont, 1853 ".

From another MS. note " Names not in Index to Woods " it is clear that they were using the " Tourists' Flora of Flowering Plants and Ferns of the British Islands, France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy and the Italian Islands " by Joseph Woods, F.A.S., F.L.S., F.G.S., published in 1850.

One interesting MS. note is as follows: " From ye chemist a Laesche les Bains, Adonis vernalis, Ephedra distichia, Urena, (among others) and Asclepias vincetoxicum wh. I th't was a Lonicera ". * T h e first Lord Vernon's youngest son took his mother's surname and became ancestor of the Vernon-Harcourt family.