page_title: Joseph Banks
section_title: Early life
hierarchical_section_title: Joseph Banks / Early life
caption_attribution_description: English: Joseph Banks, 1757, Artist unknown
context_page_description: Sir Joseph Banks, 1st Baronet, GCB, PRS was an English naturalist, botanist, and patron of the natural sciences.
  Banks made his name on the 1766 natural-history expedition to Newfoundland and Labrador. He took part in Captain James Cook's first great voyage, visiting Brazil, Tahiti, and after 6 months in New Zealand, Australia, returning to immediate fame. He held the position of president of the Royal Society for over 41 years. He advised King George III on the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and by sending botanists around the world to collect plants, he made Kew the world's leading botanical gardens. He is credited for bringing 30,000 plant specimens home with him; amongst them, he discovered 1,400.
  Banks advocated British settlement in New South Wales and colonisation of Australia, as well as the establishment of Botany Bay as a place for the reception of convicts, and advised the British government on all Australian matters. He is credited with introducing the eucalyptus, acacia, and the genus named after him, Banksia, to the Western world. Around 80 species of plants bear his name.
context_section_description: Banks was born in Argyll Street, Soho, the son of William Banks, a rich Lincolnshire country squire and member of the House of Commons, and his wife Sarah, daughter of William Bate. He was baptised at St James's Church, Piccadilly, on 20 February 1743, Old Style. He had a younger sister, Sarah Sophia Banks, born in 1744.
caption: A 1757 portrait of Banks with a botanical illustration, unknown artist, but attributed to Lemuel Francis Abbott or Johann Zoffany[3]
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