to have unpardonable faults of temper. It is possible that Sir Joseph Banks may have assumed a firm tone in the execution of his duty as president of the society, and have been free in his rebukes where he apprehended that there was any occasion for them. If this hath been the case, it is not surprising that he should not be universally popular.’
[Manuscript Correspondence; Home's Hunterian Oration, 14 Feb. 1822; Cuvier's Eloge Historique, lu le 2 Avril 1821; Sir Joseph Banks and the Royal Society, &c., London, 1846; Naturalists' Library, xxix. 17–48; Annual Biography and Obituary for 1821, pp. 97–120; Gent. Mag. 1820, i. 574, 637–8, ii. 86–8, 99; Annual Register, 1820, ii. 1153–63; Nouv. Biog. Gén. iv. 362–70; Duncan's Short Account of the Life of Sir J. Banks, Edin. 1821; Suttor's Memoirs, Paramatta, 1855; Parkinson's Journal of a Voyage to the South Seas in H.M.S. Endeavour, Lond. 1773; Von Troil's Letters on Iceland, Lond. 1781; Remembrancer, April 1784, pp. 298–309; London Review, April 1784, pp. 265–71; Critical Review, April 1784, 299–305; Appeal to the Fellows of the Royal Society, Lond. 1784; Narrative of the Dissensions and Debates in the Royal Society, Lond. 1784; History of the Instances of Exclusion from the Royal Society, Lond. 1784; Kippis's Observations on the late Contests in the Royal Society, Lond. 1784; Weld's History of the Royal Society, Lond. 1848, ii. 103–305; Barrow's Sketches, Lond. 1849, pp. 12–53.]
BANKS, SARAH SOPHIA (1744–1818), only sister of Sir Joseph Banks, was born in 1744 and died on 27 Sept. 1818, at her brother's house in Soho Square, after a short illness. She had kindred tastes to her brother, and although debarred from such adventurous voyages as he undertook, she amassed a considerable collection of objects of natural history, books, and coins. Sir Joseph Banks presented her coins and engravings to the British Museum. The Abbé Mann, one of her brother's correspondents, presented her, in 1797, with a collection of German coins which she added to her collection (Letters of Eminent Literary Men, Camd. Soc. pp. 445–7).
[Gent. Mag. lxxxviii. pt. ii. (1818), p. 472.]
BANKS, THOMAS (1735–1805), sculptor, the first of his country, according to Sir Joshua Reynolds, to produce works of classic grace, was the eldest son of William Banks, the land steward and surveyor of the Duke of Beaufort. He was born in Lambeth on 29 Dec. 1735. He is said by Flaxman to have been instructed in the principles of architecture, and to have practised drawing under his father, ‘who was an architect.’ Banks was sent to school at Ross, in Herefordshire. At the age of fifteen he was placed under Mr. Barlow, an ornament carver, and served his full term of seven years' apprenticeship. Barlow lived near Scheemakers, the sculptor, and after working at Barlow's from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. the youth studied at Scheemakers' from 8 to 10 or 11. He was employed by Kent, the architect. At the age of twenty-three he entered the academy in St. Martin's Lane, and between 1763 and 1769 obtained at least three medals and premiums from the Society of Arts. One of these honours was awarded for a bas-relief of the ‘Death of Epaminondas’ (1763) in Portland stone; another for a bas-relief in marble of ‘Hector's Body redeemed’ (1765); and a third for a life-size model in clay of ‘Prometheus with the Vulture.’ The last is praised by Flaxman as ‘boldly conceived, composition harmonious and compact.’ This was in 1769, the year of the first exhibition of the Royal Academy; and in 1770 Banks's name appears as an exhibitor of two designs of ‘Æneas and Anchises escaping from the Flames of Troy.’ In the same year he obtained the gold medal of the Academy for a bas-relief of the ‘Rape of Proserpine.’ In 1771 he exhibited a cherub hanging a garland on an urn (in clay), and a drawing of the head of an Academy model. The ability shown in these works and the ‘Mercury, Argus, and Io’ of the next year procured him a travelling studentship, and he left his house in New Bond Street, Oxford Street, and went to Rome, where he arrived in August 1772. He was now thirty-seven years old, and had married a lady of the name of Wooton, coheiress of certain green fields and flower gardens which have since been turned into the streets and squares of Mayfair. The portion of his wife and some assistance from his mother (his father being dead) placed him above the fear of want, and enabled him to prolong his stay in Italy for seven years. In 1779 he returned and took a house in Newman Street (No. 5), which he retained till his death. During his absence he exhibited two works only at the Royal Academy—a marble bas-relief of ‘Alcyone discovering the Body of Ceyx’ in 1775, and a marble bust of a lady in 1778; but the following are reckoned by different authorities as amongst the works of his Roman period: A bas-relief of the ‘Death of Germanicus,’ bought by Thomas Coke, Esq., of Holkham; another of ‘Thetis rising to comfort Achilles,’ probably the original of the fine work in marble presented by his daughter, Mrs. Forster, to the National Gallery in 1845; ‘Caractacus and his Family before Claudius,’ in marble (exhibited 1780); a
