Grantham Museum will host a special talk and temporary exhibition exploring the botanical legacy of Sir Joseph Banks, the Lincolnshire-born naturalist who travelled aboard HMS Endeavour over 250 years ago.

The event, titled 'Sir Joseph Banks: A Lincolnshire Botanist's Explorations', will take place on Friday 11 September at 2pm. Type & Forme will present both the talk and a temporary exhibition upstairs at the museum.

Banks' Botanical Discoveries

During his voyage between 1768 and 1771, Banks and fellow naturalists collected and documented around 1,300 plant species previously unknown to European science. Their discoveries transformed European understanding of the natural world and created an important botanical record of places that had been little known to European travellers at the time.

The Florilegium Project

The talk will explore the story behind Banks' Florilegium — an ambitious project to record the plants discovered during his expeditions. Banks commissioned artists, including Sydney Parkinson, to document the specimens. Hundreds of copper plates were subsequently produced under his supervision, with the resulting engravings providing an extraordinary visual record of plants encountered during the voyage.

Exhibition Details

The temporary exhibition will feature ten botanical prints depicting plants collected by Banks and his team in New Zealand and Australia. The prints show the rich foliage, colourful flowers and extraordinary diversity encountered as the Endeavour travelled across the globe.

The exhibition also tells a wider story about how botanical specimens were collected, recorded and preserved — and why these records remain important today. Some plants documented by Banks eventually travelled to Europe and became part of familiar flora. Others have since become extinct, making Banks' original specimens, drawings and engravings particularly important historical records.

The Lincolnshire Connection

Sir Joseph Banks (1743–1820) inherited Revesby Abbey in Lincolnshire in 1761 and became one of the most important British naturalists of his generation. His voyage aboard HMS Endeavour established him as a figure of international scientific significance.

The talk takes place on Friday 11 September at 2pm at Grantham Museum. More information is available at granthammuseum.org.uk/eve