Sir Henry Wickham is the man history credits with bringing rubber seeds
from Amazonia to the Botanical Gardens at
Kew
in 1876. Here some 3.75% of his total
del
ivery
germinated and many were subsequently shipped to the Far East (
Sri Lanka
,
Singapore
and
India
)
to form the nucleus of today’s natural rubber plantations throughout
that area. We will return to that event in some detail later but first to
his life as a whole.
Henry was the eldest son of a solicitor who died four years after his
birth in the London Cholera epidemic. He was, inevitably, somewhat spoilt
and had an unexceptional schooling and early life. He showed some talent
for sketching and painting and this was to provide a pictorial insight into
his later travels.
![](/web/20120103022647im_/http://www.bouncing-balls.com/timeline/people/nr_wickham1_files/H.jpg)
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Henry Wickham as a young man
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In 1866, aged 20, he set off for Central America and arrived in
Nicaragua
on October 22nd. From there he travelled up country to spend nine months
catching exotic birds, the feathers of which he sent to
London
for the ladies’ hat trade.
By the end of the summer of 1867 he was back in
England
. A year later saw him
in the
Orinoco
del
ta
and, again, he travelled up country tapping wild rubber trees and
eventually crossing to the river Negro which led him to Manaos at the
river’s confluence with the Amazon. He followed the Amazon to Par?
and then shipped to
England
,
noting that he would return to
Santarem
, at
the confluence of the
Tapajos
and Amazon
rivers, for his next adventure.
In
England
he married Violet, daughter of W.H.J Carter who was a publisher with a
bookshop/library at 12,
Regent
Street
,
London
and who, it is generally believed, financed much of Wickham’s later
travels and (mis)adventures. Indeed he published Wickham’s first book
in 1872 (which had the snappy title:
Rough
Notes of a Journey Through The Wilderness from Trinidad to Par?, Brazil, by
way of the Great Cateracts of the Orinoco, Atabapo, and Rio Negro)
and
it is probable that Henry met Violet through this connection. There were to
be no progeny. Soon after the wedding, in the summer of 1871 they set sail
for
Santarem
,
accompanied by Wickham’s mother, sister Harriette (sic) and his
younger brother John. Harriette and John married, respectively, Frank
Pilditich and Christine Frances Pedley in Par? in July 1873 but by 1876 Mrs
Wickham senior, Harriette and John’s mother-in-law was all killed by
the Amazonian climate. They are buried together just outside Santarem
together with George Morely (possibly one of the labourers the Wickhams
took with them) and fourteen-year old Mercia Jane Ferrett, Henry’s servant.
![](/web/20120103022647im_/http://www.bouncing-balls.com/timeline/people/nr_wickham1_files/first%20view%20of%20Brazilweb.jpg)
Henry & Violet's first view of Brazil
Wickham had also taken some labourers from England with him with the
idea of growing sugar, manioc and tobacco (rubber was not yet in the
picture) but they soon deserted him and he was forced to move several times
in an attempt to find reasonable workers. Eventually the family returned to
Santarem
where there was a group of ex-confederate soldiers who worked as a commune,
thus avoiding the problems with local labour. All this time Wickham’s
lifestyle was progressing smoothly downhill although his
sec
ond home was a marginal improvement on his
first! The illustrated sketches are all signed by Henry and it is believed
that the lady in the sketch below is Violet.
.
The
Wickhams’ first house near
Santarem
in 1871
![](/web/20120103022647im_/http://www.bouncing-balls.com/timeline/people/nr_wickham1_files/image003.jpg)
The
Wickham home in 1876
During the first six months of 1876, Wickham’s
‘extraction’ of some 70,000 rubber seeds from Amazonia and
their transportation to Kew, via Liverpool, took place but the complexities
of this story merit its being given separate consideration at the end of this
short biography. At this point all we should note is that Wickham and his
wife were back in England by June 1876 and in July and August Wickham was
trying to persuade the Director of the Botanical Gardens at Kew (Dr Joseph
Hooker) to employ him to accompany some of the young rubber seedlings to
areas of the tropics then under Britain’s control. Hooker rejected
the idea, having no proof of, or faith in, Wickham’s arboricultural
expertise so Wickham too the ?700 paid to him for
del
ivering
the seeds and set out, with his wife for another new life in Queensland
where he intended to grow tobacco and coffee.
Life was never easy for him! A change in the wind direction caused the
fire he had started to clear scrubland to set fire to the thatched cottage
which he had built and the building, with all their possessions, was
destroyed. A
sec
ond dwelling was
built – this time with a corrugated iron roof which was ripped off in
a storm. Finally he was left with massive debts when his partner, for whom
he had stood guarantor, walked away from the business. He sold up, cleared
the debt and returned to
England
.
Shortly after his return in November 1886 he was on his way to
British Honduras
where he obtained a government post.
His wife joined him and for once
her diaries
showed a degree of contentment with their social
existence. Wickham however longed for life in the wild and started another
plantation 60 miles from ‘civilization’. On this occasion there
were problems with his lease and it is worthy of note that during his long
legal argument over the land rights he petitioned Queen
Victoria
directly. She wrote on his
solicitor’s statement
: ”
Let justice be
done. Victoria R and I”. The ‘justice’ finished with his
again having to sell up and return to
England
in poverty in 1893.
Next he turned to the sea and took a concession to develop a small group
of coral islands to the south-east of
Papua
New Guinea
, the Conflict Group, which turned out to
be aptly named because after two years without seeing another white woman,
his wife had finally had enough and returned to
England
, never to see her
husband again. She died only a month after him. As always he was hampered
by a lack of investment capital and negligible business acumen and although
he had one more try at developing a rubber plantation on
New Guinea
he eventually gave up these
enterprises and returned to
England
,
his final return being in 1911.
Even in
England
he continued to speak his mind on how rubber trees should be planted,
cultivated and tapped and he invented various devices such as tapping
knives and rubber-smoking machines. As the reader might expect by now, his
ideas on rubber cultivation were contrary to the pragmatic ‘best
practice’ developed in the
Far East
whilst his inventions were commercial failures.
In 1911 he at last gained some financial reward from the rubber industry
with the gift of a silver salver, a ?1000 cheque and an annuity purchased
with a further ?1,000. In 1920 he was knighted for “Services in
connection with the rubber plantation industry in the Far East” and
in 1926 the American Oil magnate Edgar B Davis presented him with a cheque
for ?6,000 as an 80th birthday present. Soon afterwards the British
Government of Malaysia gave him ?8,000. Two years later he was dead.
Wickham and the rubber seed ‘migration’ to
England
Sir Clements Markham had received a knighthood for
"re-locating" the cinchona (or quinine) tree to
India
, and he was looking for
new ideas. The thought of repeating the process with the Hevea tree seemed
appealing so he arranged for the consul in Par?, the port-of-entry to the
Amazon, to obtain some Hevea seeds. A few came to
England
in 1873 but only 12
germinated and these quickly died. Dr Joseph Hooker, at the Royal Botanical
gardens at Kew, then suggested that someone he knew of in Santarem, a town
some 500 miles upstream from Par?, be commissioned to collect some more and
thus Henry Wickham entered history. After various negotiations he was
offered ?10 per 1,000 viable seeds
del
ivered
to
Kew
although, luckily.
the
word ‘viable’ was subsequently ignored
when it came to his payment. The story of how he brought Hevea seeds out of
South America to
Kew
Gardens
was told many
times by Wickham - with more and more added refinements until his death in
1928 although the version accepted as being the basis for elaborations was
written in 1908. His story was:
"The Amazonas, under Captain Murray, the first of a
new line of Inman Line-owned steamships, had arrived at
Santarem
and he had received an invitation
to dine on board. The ship then continued its voyage upstream to Manaos. He
next heard that the ship had been stripped of its cargo and abandoned by
two of its crew.
Murray
was unable to
purchase any cargo for the return voyage to the
UK
so he (Wickham) chartered it and arranged to meet it at
Santarem
where he would load the seeds he
had managed to collect. He then immediately set of by canoe up the River
Tapajos
and, working with as many natives as he could
recruit, ranged the forests collecting seeds. The girls in the village made
baskets or crates of split cane to receive the seeds which were lightly
dried and packed between layers of banana leaves to preserve their
vitality. He also noted that he was working against time as, although the
seeds would fall for a further month or so, he had his appointment to keep
with captain Murray and the Amazonas. He returned down the Tapajos, loaded
the ship and returned, with his wife, to Europe, dropping off at
Le Havre
to arrange for a train to meet the steamer
when it docked in Liverpool and transport the seeds without
del
ay to
Kew
."
Unfortunately Wickham’s story only states that he arranged to meet
the Amazonas at
Santarem
‘on a certain date’. We know the seeds arrived at Kew on June
14th 1876 and that the Amazonas docked in
Liverpool
on June 10th. We also know that he wrote to Hooker on March 6th claiming:
“I am now collecting Indian rubber seeds in the ciringals (areas of
tapped trees) of the river Tapajos being careful to select only those of
the best quality”.
Unfortunately the story just does not gel.
First there is the question of the origin of the 70,000 seeds
themselves. Given that the Hevea trees were wi
del
y
scattered throughout the tropical rainforest and not in tidy plantations
and that the seeds do not just drop but are ‘catapulted’ up to
40 yards from their parent tree, could Wickham and a few helpers really
collect 70,000 seeds in a matter of days or had he been hoarding them since
the dropping season began in January when he knew he would get the job
? .
His wife also noted in her dairy that he put out a
call for seeds and was buying all he could get hold of (sources obviously
unknown). He knew they had a very short ‘shelf life’ but, after
all, he was going to make sure he was paid on the basis of ‘number
del
ivered’, not ‘number
germinated’. That last number was to be only 2397
Then to the ship. The Amazonas was captained by George Murray who was a
man in his mid 30’s and during the time of interest to us she had
made two voyages to
Brazil
.
She had sailed from Liverpool on December 24th 1875, arrived in Par? on
January19th 1876, continued to Manaos and then returned to Par? on February
15th and was home in
Liverpool
on March
14th. She set sail again on March 25th 1876 and, although there are no records
of her times in Brazil we can assume she arrived in Par? in mid April, and
was back there by mid May as she was certainly home on June 10th. These
dates do not fit with Wickham’s letter of March 6th nor does the
conclusion that the Amazonas must have been at
Santarem
in early May fit with
Wickham’s comment that there was still one month or so of seed-drop
time left to him since this period finishes in late April, not June.
The detailed crew records show that The Amazonas docked on June 10th
with all the crew accounted for and signed off with full pay. None was
missing.
![](/web/20120103022647im_/http://www.bouncing-balls.com/timeline/people/images/nr_wickham2.jpg)
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The
Liverpool
Customs Office Bill of Entry.
Click Here
to enlarge!
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The Liverpool Customs Office Bill of Entry (illustrated) shows the ship fully
laden with most of her cargo (including 171 cases of rubber) being loaded
at Manaos, well upstream from Santarem, although she did call at Obedos,
some 75 miles upstream from Santarem, to take on board more cargo including
819 bags of Para Nuts. There is no record of the ship stopping at
Santarem
and no
mention in the cargo manifest of rubber seeds. It is tempting to think that
the ‘Para Nuts’ could be rubber tree seeds but we know these
where what we call today ‘
Brazil
Nuts’. Also, there
is no reason for Wickham to travel 75 miles upstream when the ship would be
passing his door a few hours later!
It is worth calculating what we are looking for and although all the
figures are very much approximations, they do give some idea of the
‘package’. 70,000 Rubber tree seeds weigh about 700,000 grams
or three quarters of a ton; given the banana leaf layers and the cases the
gross weight must be nearer 1,500 Kg or one and a half tons. For the woven
baskets to be portable by the natives they would be unlikely to weigh more
than 30 Kg so we are looking for a few tens (50?) of them. Converting 30 Kg
of seeds and leaves to volume gives a value of around 65 litres which is
close to 40 cm cube or 50 cm diameter hemispherical basket– a very
convenient size to manhandle.
What can we make of Wickham’s story, even without its later
embellishments?
We do not know the detailed source of all of the seeds if Wickham
actually bought some.
The seeds must have been stored until the Amazonas was in the region of
Santarem
in early May.
Why did Wickham concoct such an obviously disprovable story about the
Amazonas?
Where were they loaded and why is there no record of them in the cargo
manifest?
It is difficult now to address these points and there is yet another
which cannot be laid at Wickham’s door. Were the 22 seedlings that
went to Singapore and which formed the basis of most of the Far eastern
plantations actually from Wickham’s seeds or were they derived from
seedlings brought to Kew by Robert Cross whom Hooker had sent to Brazil as
a ‘back-up’ in case of Wickham’s failure to
del
iver?
Follow the link to
‘Rubber
goes East’
to find out more.
What then can one make of Sir Henry Wickham?
One view was expressed by Henry Ridley, Director of the Botanic gardens
in Singapore and the person who, more than any other, persuaded the country
know known as Malaysia to develop rubber plantations: “ I looked on
him as a failed planter who was lucky in that for merely travelling home
with a lot of seeds had received a knighthood and enough money to live
comfortably in his old age…..He ordered natives to bring him in the
seeds and to pack them in crates and put them on board ship. One cannot
help feeling he was jolly well paid for a little job. He was no
agriculturalist, he knew nothing about rubber and cared not for
it….As for his abilities in planting I should say he had none”.
Edward Lane, one of the very few people to have studied Wickham’s
life in detail, wrote of him in 1953 as an ardent imperialist with little
business acumen with an autocratic manner which made him difficult to get
on with yet he was a staunch and loyal friend to those he really liked.
Fordyce Jones, a close friend in Wickham’s later years called him:
“a great man…whom to know was to love and whom all those in the
rubber industry who have its interests at heart have affectionately called
its ‘father’”.
Although these remarks consider different aspects of the one man and his
life there seems little conflict between them. He was domineering,
egocentric but a true friend. His business acumen was undoubtedly hopeless
but, at one point in his life, he was ‘in the right place at the
right time’. In order to boost his ego and standing, he had to make
an adventure out of a simple voyage and in so doing his exaggerations and
deceptions hid beyond recovery the truth of his one successful activity
which certainly did change the world for ever (if the 22 seedlings really
were from his seeds and not from those of Robert Cross!).