Jason Ng (KCL) - 2023-24 Students
jason.c.ng@kcl.ac.uk

Kew and Colonial Botanic Gardens in an Era of Decolonization

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, a network of colonial botanic gardens facilitated the exchange of plants and knowledge across Britain’s expanding empire. Economic botany practiced in these gardens served imperial ambitions. The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew was the central node of this network, supplying personnel and training, and was instrumental in the development of colonial gardens, shaping the wider landscapes of Britain’s colonies.

While much of the literature surround Kew has chartered its transformation from royal pleasure gardens in the eighteenth century to department of state in 1841 and its growing importance within a global network of colonial gardens, few beginning from a British metropolitan or colonial perspective extend far into the twentieth century. This collaborative doctoral research project between King’s College London and the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew aims to address the deficiency in historical understanding of Kew as a global actor by investigating Kew’s relations with overseas botanic gardens from the early twentieth century, through decolonization to the postcolonial era. The goal is to insert Kew, botany, and botanic gardens into broader literatures about mid-twentieth century colonial development, processes of decolonization, and the intersection of science and decolonization.

Through the study of at least two other colonial botanic gardens, this project will examine whether and how decolonization reconfigured established associations and networks, and the extent to which – in the wake of empire and the formation of newly-independent states – former colonial botanic gardens were invested with new meanings and repurposed to serve local or national objectives. As I rehash the project proposals, and write this in September 2023, I have decided to work on the Singapore Botanic Gardens as one of my sites. The other(s) will come along as I delve into the archives.

Primary supervisor: Professor Sarah Stockwell

Secondary supervisor: Dr Chris Manias