| AdminHistory | Thomas Henry Farrer, first Baron Farrer (1819-1899), civil servant and statistician, was educated at Eton and Balliol College, Oxford. Farrer was the son of Thomas Farrer, a solicitor in Lincoln's Inn Fields. He was called to the bar of Lincoln's Inn in 1844 but retired from practice a few years later. He became a civil servant in 1850 when he took the post of secretary to the naval department of the Board of Trade. In 1865 he was promoted and became one of the joint secretaries of the Board of Trade, and in 1867 he became permanent secretary. Farrer was President of the Royal Statistical Society from 1894 to 1896.
He married Frances Erskine (1825-1870) in 1854 and they had four children: Emma Cecilia "Ida" Farrer (1854-1946), Thomas Cecil Farrer (1859-1940), Claude Erskine Farrer (1862-1890), and Hon. Noel Maitland Farrer (1867-1929). Ida Farrer went on to marry Horace Darwin, son of Charles Darwin (1851-1928).
Farrer's first wife, Frances, died on 15 May 1870. Farrer remarried in 1873 to his wife's half-cousin, Katherine Euphemia Wedgwood (1839-1931). Farrer died on 11 October 1899 at Abinger Hall, Dorking. |
| Description | Exercise book of Thomas Henry Farrer, dated 1835-1872, containing notes, scraps, and pencil drawings, on the fertilisation of the following plants, which are labelled:
- Calluna vulgaris
- Odontoglossum Orchid
- Viola odorata
- Aeschynanthus
- Erica tetralix
- Allamanda
- Heliotrope
- Viola cornuta
- Acanthus
- Chrorozema
- Sweet pea
- Achimenes
- Common broad bean
- Anchusa
Also includes the following loose scraps of papers:
- Extract from Miss Milford, dated Oct 20 1835.
- Notes and diagrams on the fertilisation of Galeopsis ladanum, dated Oct 1868.
- Paper with specimen of Linnaea borealis from Denmore Woods, Scotstown Moor, Aberdeen, collected by John Roy at the request of Lady Clark, dated 22 Jun 1872.
- Notes on Linaria vulgaris.
- Notes on the fertilisation of Medicago and common Thyme.
- Notes on Salvia pratensis, dated 12 Oct. |