George Clifford III (7 January 1685,

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the capital and most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population of 907,976 within the city proper, 1,558,755 in the urban ar ...

– 10 April 1760,

Heemstede Heemstede () is a town and a municipality in the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland. It is the fourth richest municipality of the Netherlands. History Heemstede formed around the Castle ''Heemstede'' that was built overlooking the ...

) was a wealthy Dutch banker and one of the directors of the

Dutch East India Company The United East India Company ( nl, Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie, the VOC) was a chartered company established on the 20th March 1602 by the States General of the Netherlands amalgamating existing companies into the first joint-stock ...

. He is known for his keen interest in plants and gardens. His summer estate

Hartekamp Hartekamp, or Hartecamp, is the name of a villa in Heemstede, North Holland, the Netherlands, on the Bennebroek border. It was once the Buitenplaats of George Clifford, who employed Carl Linnaeus in 1737 to write his '' Hortus Cliffortianus'', a ...

, south of Haarlem in Heemstede near Bennebroek, had a rich variety of plants and he engaged the Swedish naturalist

Carl von Linné Carl Linnaeus (; 23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after his ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné Blunt (2004), p. 171. (), was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the ...

("Carl Linnaeus"), who stayed at his estate from 1736 to 1738, to write '' Hortus Cliffortianus'' (1737), a masterpiece of early botanical literature published in 1738, and for which

Georg Dionysius Ehret Georg Dionysius Ehret (30 January 1708 – 9 September 1770) was a German botanist and entomologist known for his botanical illustrations. Life Ehret was born in Germany to Ferdinand Christian Ehret, a gardener and competent draughtsman, a ...

did the illustrations. His grandfather,

Englishman The English people are an ethnic group and nation native to England, who speak the English language, a West Germanic language, and share a common history and culture. The English identity is of Anglo-Saxon origin, when they were known in ...

George Clifford I, moved from

Stow Stow may refer to: Places United Kingdom * Stow, Lincolnshire or Stow-in-Lindsey, a village * Stow of Wedale or Stow, Scottish Borders, a village * Stow-on-the-Wold, Gloucestershire, a small town * Stow, Shropshire or Stowe, a village * Stow ...

(where his

father A father is the male parent of a child. Besides the paternal bonds of a father to his children, the father may have a parental, legal, and social relationship with the child that carries with it certain rights and obligations. An adoptive fathe ...

was

rector Rector (Latin for the member of a vessel's crew who steers) may refer to: Style or title *Rector (ecclesiastical), a cleric who functions as an administrative leader in some Christian denominations *Rector (academia), a senior official in an edu ...

) to Amsterdam around 1640, beginning an Anglo-Dutch trading and banking dynasty. Subsequent members of the

Clifford Family Baron de Clifford is a title in the Peerage of England. It was created in 1299 for Robert de Clifford (''c.''1274–1314), feudal baron of Clifford in Herefordshire, feudal baron of Skipton in Yorkshire and feudal baron of Appleby in Westmo ...

were prominent leaders in Amsterdam. The garden at Hartekamp was already quite famous before George Clifford bought the estate in 1709 from Johan Hinlopen. Under his ownership, the number of unusual plants grew exponentially. He had 4 hothouses built to house the many tropical plants that he collected through his business connections from all over the world. He was an important friend and seed supplier for botanist

Herman Boerhaave Herman Boerhaave (, 31 December 1668 – 23 September 1738Underwood, E. Ashworth. "Boerhaave After Three Hundred Years." ''The British Medical Journal'' 4, no. 5634 (1968): 820–25. https://www.jstor.org/stable/20395297.) was a Dutch botanist, ...

, whose summer home (and garden) at

Oud Poelgeest Oud Poelgeest is castle in Oegstgeest, north of Leiden, that was the former home of the Dutch scientist Herman Boerhaave (1668–1738). He was a Dutch humanist and physician of European fame. History The castle was built in 1668 on the foundat ...

was just a short trip away by ''

trekschuit Trekschuit (, literally ''"tug-boat"'', but true meaning ''"tugged-boat"'') is an old style of sail- and horse-drawn boat specific to the Netherlands, where it was used for centuries as a means of passenger traffic between cities along ''trek ...

'' along the Haarlem-Leiden canal known as the Leidsevaart. In 1736 Clifford became famous for growing the first indoor

banana tree A banana is an elongated, edible fruit – botanically a berry – produced by several kinds of large herbaceous flowering plants in the genus ''Musa''. In some countries, bananas used for cooking may be called "plantains", distinguis ...

, and for this reason Linnaeus was eager to work with him. Many

specimen Specimen may refer to: Science and technology * Sample (material), a limited quantity of something which is intended to be similar to and represent a larger amount * Biological specimen or biospecimen, an organic specimen held by a biorepository ...

s from Clifford's garden were also studied by Linnaeus for his '' Species Plantarum'' (1753). Clifford died in 1760 and left the business to his sons George IV (1708-1757), Jan (1710-1772), Henry (1711-1787) and the estate to Pieter (1712-1788). The banking house of Clifford under George Clifford Jr. fell in 1772 and the estate Hartekamp went out of the family in 1788. Since then the garden has declined and is currently used as a school campus.

Herbarium

Clifford's herbarium was acquired by Joseph Banks in 1791 who passed it on to the

British Museum of Natural History The Natural History Museum in London is a museum that exhibits a vast range of specimens from various segments of natural history. It is one of three major museums on Exhibition Road in South Kensington, the others being the Science Museum ...

, where it is published online. Many of the specimens in the collection are mounted on the paper contemporary with their preservation, but some have been remounted on a type of paper used by the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

. They are labelled in various hands, including Clifford's own. Many are mounted using a label made to look like an urn; a method typical of and exclusive to Dutch herbaria of the period. Various styles of urn were used.

References and external links

1685 births 1760 deaths 18th-century Dutch botanists 18th-century Dutch businesspeople Businesspeople from Amsterdam Dutch bankers Dutch gardeners Dutch people of English descent Administrators of the Dutch East India Company Carl Linnaeus Biology and natural history in the Dutch Republic {{Netherlands-business-bio-stub

Herbarium

See also

References and external links