Margaret Gatty, Marine Botany, and the family enterprise of natural history

Abstract Marine botany was one of the natural history ‘crazes’ in nineteenth-century Britain, the field particularly attracting many women from various social backgrounds. Although generally self-educated, many of them developed an expertise which provided a crucial help to male professionals. This was the case of Margaret Scott Gatty (1809–1873), often remembered today as a Victorian children's writer, but who became one of the most significant algae collectors of the period. This article argues that while developing her personal herbarium, Gatty trained her children in the field. The family enterprise of natural history she nurtured throughout the years reflected significant patterns of collective labour which this article examines. Reversing conventional representations of the scientific practitioner, Gatty managed her own career, cloaked as she was beneath the stereotype of the Victorian woman pedagogue. By shifting the focus on women and children as marginalized agents of knowledge production, this article therefore offers new insights into the labour of natural history, and stresses, in particular, the role that Gatty's daughter, Horatia K. F. Gatty Eden (1846–1945), played as both collector and curator of her mother's collection.