CASE STUDY
MARY SOMERSET, THE DUCHESS OF BEAUFORT
(1630-1715)
Among the women who contributed to Sloane’s herbarium, none were as prolific as Mary Somerset — a horticultural virtuoso who nurtured an extraordinary array of plants from both Beaufort House, her Chelsea home, and at Badminton, her sprawling private estate in Gloucestershire.
“When I get into storys of plants’, she confessed to Sloane, in one of the many letters they exchanged, ‘I know not how to get out’.1 Cultivating a close relationship with Sloane as carefully as she would a favoured specimen, the Duchess obtained seeds from a vast network of correspondents from around the world. Under her watchful eye, the gardeners at Badminton brought numerous exotic species into bloom in English soil. According to Sloane, when ‘sickly’ young plants struggled to thrive, they were transferred to what Somerset called her ‘Infirmary,’ where an ‘old woman under her Grace’s direction’ would attend to them.2 In later years, she invested in sophisticated hothouses with advanced subterranean heating systems to rival those at Hampton Court.3 James Petiver declared her ‘Nursing Care’ so effective that scarcely any plant, no matter how distant its origin, could fail to thrive at Badminton.4
With the assistance of the Dutch artist Everhard Kick, whom Sloane recommended to her, Somerset embarked on an aesthetic documentation of her botanical triumphs. Starting in July 1703, this effort resulted in a series of over 800 watercolours, later termed the ‘Badminton Florilegium.’5
Pressed Auriculas from the herbarium of Mary Somerset (the Duchess of Beaufort) © The Trustees of the Natural History Museum.
Portrait of Mary Capel (1630–1715), Later Duchess of Beaufort, and Her Sister Elizabeth (1633–1678), Countess of Carnarvon, by Sir Peter Lely, oil on canvas. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Britannia Illustrata: Beaufort House, Chelsea, 1707–9. by Johannes Kip after Leendert Knijff. Etching and engraving, hand coloured. The Cleveland Museum of Art.
EXSICCATAE VOLUMES
It was likewise Sloane who suggested the Duchess record her botanical endeavours in a formal herbarium, now housed in an impressive twelve-volume horti sicci, at the Natural History Museum. These volumes testify to the remarkable diversity of plants she cultivated at Badminton. Larger specimens, such as cactus and aloe, which are notoriously difficult to press due to their thick, fleshy tissues, are carefully spread across pages, with each segment affixed to preserve its natural form.
Smaller, more delicate specimens are arranged in neatly folded paper pockets and organised in a grid-like fashion. Each page or pocket is accompanied by elegant script, noting the common name or origin of the specimen, and, occasionally, personal reflections or practical notes about its cultivation. One such note, accompanying a specimen of Athyrium filix-femina, records that it was ‘the fearne you gather’d at Tunbridge’ — a detail that emphasises her hands-on involvement in collecting plants and shows that her botanical pursuits extended beyond the confines of her private gardens.6
The herbaria of Mary Somerset (the Duchess of Beaufort) © The Trustees of the Natural History Museum.
VEGETABLE SUBSTANCES
The Duchess’ domestic horticultural successes were deeply intertwined with the privileges afforded by her social status and the colonial context of her time. As a member of the English aristocracy, and Sloane’s neighbour, she had access to an extensive and well-connected network of correspondents, explorers, and colonial agents who were instrumental in the expansion of the British Empire. Without ever traveling to the distant regions from which these plants originated, her domestic English garden became a repository of global botanical wealth (see Munroe 2014).
This global network is exemplified by Somerset’s copious contributions to what Sloane referred to as his ‘Vegetable Substances’—botanical matter of medicinal or culinary interest, preserved in a collection of small boxes.7 These specimens often passed through numerous agents before reaching Hans Sloane, who would then habitually entrust them to Somerset for cultivation. The descendants of these plants might later be preserved in Somerset’s personal herbarium and/or conveyed back to Sloane for inclusion in his ‘Vegetable Substances’.
Sloane Vegetable Substance No. 6822: Cedar Berries, contributed by Mary Somerset. © The Trustees of the Natural History Museum.
Sloane Vegetable Substance No. 7597: Wild Indigo, catalogued in 1713, contributed by Mary Somerset. © The Trustees of the Natural History Museum.
This Tchi ma (sesame) specimen, originally sent from China to Sloane via Mr Douglasse and Mr Annesley, was entrusted to the Duchess of Beaufort for cultivation. © The Trustees of the Natural History Museum.
Sloane’s ‘Vegetable Substances’ label reads: ‘No. 18. Tchi ma. A very good oil is made from it, called Mayeou. It is also used on the surface of small cakes, giving them a fragrant taste. It is sown in May.’
The corresponding text in Somerset’s hortus siccus (131: f. 17) reads: ‘1714 Dr Sloane from China June ye 9th 5055 Tchi ma. It maketh very good oyl wch: they call Mayeou. They also put some of it upon little Cakes, and it gives them a grateful Taste. They sow them in May’ .8
Download the Dataset
Available as an Excel file (.xlsx) or in CSV format.
This dataset is designed as an initial step in understanding and expanding the representation of women within Hans Sloane’s collections via the Sloane Lab Knowledge Base.
It offers a snapshot of the various ways women are documented and represented, detailing their roles (e.g., artist, author), the type of entries associated with them, and additional contextual information.
Download the Guide
Available as a PDF file in both double-page & single-page view.
This guide is part of a broader effort to enhance how narratives of marginalised individuals are accessed, understood, and valued within the SLKB.
This research was generously funded by University College London (UCL) through The Sloane Lab, one of five ‘Discovery Projects’ under the Towards a National Collection initiative, supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council.
- Sloane MS 4061, f. 25v. ↩︎
- Hortus Siccus 66, title page, Natural History Museum. ↩︎
- Laird, Mark. A Natural History of English Gardening: 1650–1800. Yale University Press, 2015, p. 66. ↩︎
- Petiver, James. Musei Petiveriani Centuria Prima. Ex officina S. Smith & B. Walford, 1695. ↩︎
- From September 8th-15th 2024 there will be an exhibition of 30 reproductions of some of the finest paintings from the florilegium at Badminton House, as well as an opportunity to view the originals in their bound volumes. https://www.badmintonestate.com/etn/a-garden-of-botanical-art-paintings-from-the-collection-of-mary-somerset-the-first-duchess-of-beaufort/ ↩︎
- Hortus Siccus 235: f. 30, Natural History Museum. ↩︎
- Pickering, Victoria. Putting Nature in a Box: Hans Sloane’s ‘Vegetable Substances’ Collection. 2017. Queen Mary University of London, Thesis. qmro.qmul.ac.uk, https://qmro.qmul.ac.uk/xmlui/handle/123456789/25935. ↩︎
- Pickering, Victoria R. M. ‘Sealed and Concealed: The Uses of Hans Sloane’s Collection of “Vegetable Substances”’. Journal of the History of Collections, vol. 33, no. 3, Nov. 2021, pp. 481–92. (See pages 488-489). ↩︎