Kew's Forgotten Queen

This place has some of the richest diversity of wildlife.

There are all manner of monkeys and lizards and snakes.

But if you'd come here, say, 150 years ago,

when this was still one of the most remote places on Earth...

there's just a possibility that you might have followed

one of the winding forest paths...

..and happened suddenly upon...

..a middle-aged Englishwoman, standing, painting furiously.

The woman's name is Marianne North,

a Victorian rebel in petticoats.

She hunted the world to paint undiscovered plants,

armed with nothing more than a brush and an iron will.

Here I go, Miss North!

I'm actress Emilia Fox and I've come to Borneo,

following in the footsteps of this intrepid explorer,

whose maverick nature has always inspired me.

Marianne North stepped into the realm of the man.

She broke all manner of rules,

travelling the globe alone for 15 years...

Everywhere she went, she drew.

..creating over 1,000 paintings.

There is a vibrancy and a sense of feeling and emotion.

It makes me want to cry!

This is the story of a fearless pioneer...

She was consumed by this passion...

-Yes.

-..to paint plants.

..whose vision impressed the most revolutionary scientist of all time.

Darwin had great respect for her.

She did bring to life his theory.

Incredible.

To run away into the wild with plants,

that makes Marianne North an extraordinary painter.

You wouldn't believe that I'm in one of the most

densely populated cities in the world.

But this is a 300-acre oasis of calm in south-west London.

This is Kew Gardens.

For over 250 years, these magnificent gardens

have led the world in botanical research.

Under Queen Victoria,

it became the scientific powerhouse of the British Empire.

It's here at Kew where it all began,

where a feisty woman, Marianne North, was inspired to collect

and paint the most remarkable plants, travel to the far corners

of the world, and bend the rules of tradition.

For me, Marianne North is a visionary,

a hidden treasure whose life and work merit exploration.

At a time when women occupied the drawing-room,

this Victorian trailblazer openly shuns domestic stereotypes.

She travels across five continents, discovers unknown species,

and brings the natural world alive in the most mesmerising way.

I've grown up taking my right as a woman for granted.

I vote, I work, I have choices.

Marianne lives at a time when the very idea of educated women

is ridiculed. The Royal Society of Science

didn't admit the first female Fellow until 1945,

almost three decades after women won the vote in 1918.

It's a testament to her strength

that Marianne defies those boundaries.

Marianne is certainly extraordinary in many ways.

I think her outlook on life is quite unusual.

She undoubtedly lives a life less ordinary

and seeks out thrilling and adventurous experiences.

Marianne's adventurous spirit and curious mind is evident

from a young age.

Born in Hastings in 1830, her father, Frederick North,

a well-connected and wealthy landowner,

encourages her passion for the natural world,

and Kew Gardens.

It's like a natural playground...

..where London society, botanists and scientists,

came to enjoy and learn about the extraordinary life of plants.

It can also lay claim to being

one of the most biodiverse places on Earth.

For me, Kew Gardens is a wondrous canopy

of ever-changing earthly beauty

and it's incredible to think that it was just as wondrous

in Victorian times for the intrepid Marianne North.

It's on a visit in 1856, when Marianne was 26,

that Frederick North brings his daughter here to the Palm House.

For Marianne, it's like walking into a fantastical, alien world.

This is one of the wonders of the Victorian age.

Half an acre of iron and glass.

The Palm House opens in 1848

and is the brainchild of Sir William Hooker,

Kew's first official director and friend of Frederick North.

This symbol of the British Empire literally brings the tropics

to the heart of Victorian Britain

and to the awestruck Marianne North.

I'm surrounded by extremely spiky plants.

But this is the Eastern Cape giant cycad.

At over 200 years old, it could be the world's oldest pot plant.

So when Marianne North came here in 1856 with her father,

this cycad had been on display at Kew for 80 years.

No wonder it needs to be propped up in its old age!

It's an absolutely extraordinary plant.

But there is another plant here

that is even more thrilling for the young Marianne.

"Sir William Hooker gave me

"a hanging bunch of the Amherstia nobilis,

"one of the grandest flowers in existence.

"It was the first that had bloomed in England

"and it made me long to see the tropics."

This fantastical flower completely captures her imagination.

It ignites a spark that would, over the next 30 years,

drive her to conquer the globe and create over 1,000 paintings.

Now, if you can imagine, for the past five years,

Marianne has thrived as a watercolour artist,

constantly painting flowers, landscapes

and every aspect of the natural world.

In fact, ever since 1855,

her father complains of her making a most exclusive business of painting.

And coming here was like adding fire to her passion.

Her paintings are very much infused with her identity

and her feelings and her emotions.

She didn't have the botanical training

that a professional technical artist would have had.

So, Marianne is very much breaking the rules

because she doesn't really conform

to anything that's going on at the time.

She wanted to have control over what appeared on her canvas.

'Marianne has such a pioneering spirit,

'the passion with which she paints.

'I'm curious to know where that came from

'so I've come to Rougham Hall in Norfolk where she spent her summers,

'and where her great-great nephew Tom North still lives

'with his wife Sally and sister Christine.'

-Hello.

-Hello, Tom.

-Nice to meet you.

-Lovely to meet you.

-Welcome to our little house.

-Thank you so much.

-Come in.

-Hello, I'm Christine.

-Hello, Emilia.

-And Sally.

-Hi, Sally.

It's lovely to be able to come here and meet you

and now to find out a little bit more about Marianne as a person.

She spent so much time here.

So, where shall we begin?

A cup of tea!

Lovely, thank you so much.

It's breathtaking when you walk in,

you can feel the family atmosphere here straightaway,

just with all the pictures, the colours, the fire.

Aunt Pop kept these wonderful diaries and inside,

she has collected every different type of grass

-that was growing in Norfolk.

-Really?

How lovely!

'Marianne, known as Aunt Pop, is one of three children.

'Her father is a Member of Parliament for Hastings

'and she enjoys a privileged upbringing.'

He must have been an extraordinary man, I think, of great charm.

They were very, very close.

It was him that gave her the nickname Pop.

We always thought, as children,

that it was because she was always popping off to foreign parts.

But when she was a very little girl, she was always his favourite child.

Both of them loved the countryside.

They used to ride round the garden

and they also studied the plants.

They just enjoyed a simple country life.

So, these are Marianne's pictures?

Those are her own pictures, yes.

I think she must have painted those when she was quite young

cos they look to me like watercolours.

And there's her father sitting in the garden, reading.

Yes, there he is.

And there he's reading on the bench.

And they spent a lot of time in their garden at Hastings.

-They're amazing gardens, from these pictures.

-I know.

Her father built three greenhouses in the gardens

with different temperatures in each house,

rather like at Kew.

They worked in the greenhouses pretty well every day.

And so do you think he taught Marianne about plants?

I would think he was pretty knowledgeable as well.

But I think she sort of overtook him, as it were.

She was always mad about plants and she used to wash the plants

and tend the sick ones.

Her mind seems to have been slightly different

to the average Victorian lady.

To do something so spirited, to go off on these travels,

makes her slightly unique for the time.

I think she was a very independent spirit.

-Yes.

-I know her father sometimes used to get worn out by her.

-She was so energetic!

-THEY LAUGH

But Marianne was definitely number one in his life, I think.

She was the absolute apple of his eye.

"My first recollections relate to my father.

"He was, from first to last, the one idol and friend of my life

"and apart from him, I had little pleasure and no secrets."

Away from the quiet summers in Rougham Hall,

the North family also lead a very sociable and bohemian lifestyle.

Their Hastings home is a revolving door

to musicians and famous artists.

William Henry Hunt and Edward Lear are regular visitors.

At an early age, Marianne is exposed to untraditional influences

and feels confident in being different.

"Someone told my mother that I was very uneducated,

"which was perfectly true, so I was sent to school.

"School life was hateful to me."

Marianne's school life is short-lived

and she's left to her own devices.

But she turns out to be well read, very knowledgeable

and almost entirely self-taught.

The Norths were an intellectual family

and that gave Aunt Pop confidence to do her own thing.

She had a particular way of coding, almost,

where she would sign each painting.

And you can see here, it's hidden away, you can see here.

Look! That's fantastic!

-That says so much about her character, doesn't it?

-Yes, it does.

So, is that the same with all her paintings?

You have to search for her signature?

You have to search, indeed you do.

-I won't tell you where it is!

-OK.

-There it is.

-You've found it.

It's like being a child.

It is, yes.

It's so clever, I love it.

Marianne rather relished being quite different

and sometimes perhaps even played up to it.

It would have been expected for most women to simply get married,

have children, and stay within the domestic environment,

whereas she, from quite an early age, was striving to be different.

Marianne grows up here in Hastings where that freedom to be different,

to follow her ambition,

is nurtured by both her father and her mother, Janet.

Frederick North and his family clearly enjoyed travelling

and seeing how people lived on the Continent and elsewhere.

I think they were quite a close-knit family

and weren't totally bound by every strict Victorian convention.

Marianne's mother dies when Marianne is 25.

It doesn't merit much of a mention in her autobiography,

except to say that her last few weeks had been dreary.

But it's an important moment because Frederick North never remarries

and Marianne makes a promise never to leave his side.

The two remain constant companions,

travelling extensively throughout Europe and the Middle East.

Marianne captures their expeditions in exquisite watercolour drawings.

But 1868 marks a creative turning point -

Australian artist Robert Dowling gives her her first lesson

in oil painting. She describes the experience

as "a vice like dram drinking".

From then on, Marianne was addicted.

Marianne North's world suddenly collapses when, in October 1869,

her father, Frederick North, dies.

"The last words in his mouth were, 'Come and give me a kiss, Pop.

"'I am only going to sleep.'

"He never woke again

"and left me indeed alone."

According to her own account, she goes into a kind of hibernation

and then emerges, with this very British stiff upper lip response.

"I could not bear to talk of him or of anything else

"and resolved to keep out of the way of all friends and relations.

"I left the house at Hastings forever."

Marianne, nearly 40 years old and mistress of her own destiny,

sets off on her travels.

She possesses a large fortune and can do absolutely as she pleases.

Finally, her rage to see the tropics is fulfilled.

Marianne's gateway to the globe begins in America.

Her horizons are magnified.

She is enchanted by grand, giant trees

and the breathtaking Niagara Falls.

She visits a dozen countries in just six years, always on the move,

always painting and always a lone traveller.

Unlike our click-easy vacations,

travelling 150 years ago was difficult and dangerous.

Marianne would have easily spent up to two years at sea,

enduring cramped, unsanitary conditions,

violent storms and severe sickness.

It's seen as an unsuitable pursuit for the weaker sex,

unless one has what were called letters of introduction.

Marianne's letters of introduction were absolutely vital for her

to gain the kind of experiences that she had.

These letters operated like a 19th-century social network

that connected British upper classes around the Empire.

It ensured that she was introduced to a lot of intellectual ideas,

scientific thought, challenging debates,

many things that other women simply didn't encounter at that time.

But it isn't the chance to rub shoulders with high society

that really excites her.

What she wants is to paint in the most far-flung places on Earth.

"I had long had the dream of going to some tropical country

"to paint its peculiar vegetation on the spot

"in natural luxuriance."

I've followed Marianne to one of these tropical countries.

This is Sarawak, north Borneo.

She travelled here to paint curious plants,

including those strange flesh-eating pitcher plants.

"The loveliest and most extraordinary productions

"in all Malaya."

1876 finds Marianne steaming in from Singapore to Kuching,

the Malaysian part of Borneo.

She arrived by boat, soaking in all this exotic difference.

"The glorious vegetation dazzled me with its magnificence.

"What was I to paint first?"

North Borneo was a bizarre outpost like no other.

In the 19th century, explorer James Brooke helped crush a rebellion

against the Sultan of Brunei.

He was given Sarawak and the title of White Rajah.

By the time Marianne North comes here,

with the inevitable letter of introduction,

the second White Rajah, nephew Charles Brooke,

was firmly in charge.

He rules with a staff of 20 English officers, 100 soldiers, and a wife,

titled the Ranee, who he imported from England to produce an heir.

'The Astana, meaning Palace,

'was the official residence of the Rajah and Ranee.

'It was Marianne's first stop in Kuching

'and where I am meeting historian John Walker

'to talk about her intriguing visit.'

When Marianne arrived, the Rajah was away, so the Ranee was by herself

and she really welcomed Marianne.

Yes. And so when she arrived,

there was quite an interesting introduction, wasn't there?

And the Ranee said something about Marianne's appearance.

-She was not flattering!

-No, she wasn't!

She said she had a big nose and thin lips.

But on the other hand, Marianne described her as being beautiful.

The Ranee had many admirable qualities,

but nobody else describes her as beautiful.

'We learn a lot about Marianne in the Ranee's autobiography.

'The account of her globetrotting guest is playfully revealing.'

The Ranee clearly enjoyed her being here.

But she was trying.

There was a restlessness to her.

"After luncheon, Miss North was hurtlingly energetic.

"With the thermometer at 80 degrees in the shade,

"I was longing for my siesta.

"'What?' said my friend. 'I never heard of such a thing!'"

Marianne is clearly strong-willed and enthusiastic,

to the point of obsession.

Do you think there was something more to her need

to travel to such far-flung places?

Emilia, it wasn't an interest, it was a passion.

-Yes.

-It was an absolute passion.

-She was driven.

-Yes.

-And you have to remember

that she actually was a botanist.

We think of her as an artist because she painted,

but in the absence of colour photography,

those paintings are a vital contribution to science.

And it was a male dominated world.

-Yes.

-She wanted to be taken seriously by Hooker,

who was the director of Kew Gardens, and he did take her seriously.

This is an extraordinary achievement for a 19th-century woman.

Marianne was different

because she wasn't just travelling for the point of travelling.

-She was consumed by this passion.

-Yes.

-To paint plants.

Yes, and she didn't seem bothered by the heat or the dangers in her quest

-for finding them.

-She was very practical about it.

So the Ranee was shocked, she comments she has short petticoats

-which she always seems to have up!

-That's right!

And then she's in the boat and she says that she sat there

with her knees "en evidence".

-It's just a fantastic image, isn't it?

-Yes.

'Once Marianne finishes shocking and charming her hostess,

'she sets her mind on one purpose -

'finding those peculiar pitcher plants.'

She's like a child in her excitement.

The very day she arrives, she tells the Ranee,

"I want to go and see some pitcher plants."

The Ranee's never heard of them,

so they have to ask one of the house boys

and he knows where they are in the forest.

So she grabs the Ranee, they jump in a little canoe,

row up the river and down a creek,

clamber through the mud and they find a selection of pitcher plants.

And she's delighted.

-Yes.

-So the next day the Ranee says, "What do you want to do?"

She said, "Do? I'm going to paint while they're fresh."

She spent the entire day painting them.

"And, from that moment, I did very truly love Miss North.

"She was an artist, she felt the beauty of our surroundings.

"She loved flowers and all beautiful things."

Marianne North's work has a pulsating liveliness

that is drawn, I think, through her use of oil painting.

Botanical drawings would usually be in pencil or watercolour.

By using oils and refusing to follow

traditional codes of scientific illustration,

Marianne blurs the lines between science and art.

The thing about North's use of oils is that it is totally natural.

She just takes the colour, places it onto the paper and mixes it,

which is quite unusual.

And given some of the detail that she accomplishes,

it is quite extraordinary.

'But what is extraordinary to Marianne

'isn't just the excitement of painting,

'it's her botanical curiosity

'and the hunt of the plant itself.'

Here I go, Miss North!

'And now, I want to have a taste of that adventure,

'to see what excited Marianne,

'to find those bizarre carnivorous plants.'

It looks unreal,

like we're in a film and this is a film set.

Maybe we are!

'I'm heading into the depths of a forest south of Kuching.

'There, Mr Yeo, a local wildlife expert,

'I hope will make my day "pitcher" perfect.'

So that must've been why Marianne wanted to come to Borneo.

Uh-huh. Yes.

Ah! A sheer cliff face!

'There are 30-40 species of pitcher plants in Borneo,

'around 20 in Sarawak alone.

'It's no wonder Marianne came here,

'battling challenging terrains to catch a glimpse.'

-Are you all right?

-Thank you.

-Are you all right?

-Do you think Marianne climbed cliffs like this?

So it's like an Easter egg hunt, but with pitcher plants!

Come on.

Oh, my goodness!

I found one!

-Wow, they are extraordinary!

-Yes.

-I've never seen anything like them.

-They're well-named as pitcher plants, aren't they?

-Yep.

-I see one there.

-Where?

Yes, yes. OK, come.

Come this way.

-See?

-Wow!

-See?

-They're huge!

-OK.

-What would happen if you touched that?

Are you serious? What, if you put your finger in there?

OK.

'Thankfully harmless for humans, but not for unsuspecting insects.'

Oh, I see, it helps them get up there!

-Yes!

-So it's clever, it lures the ants.

-Yes.

-They climb up and then they fall in.

-So it's like a trap.

-Yes.

Fascinating!

I've never seen anything like that in my life.

These are truly intricate plants,

trapping ants and other insects that slip down the side of the pitcher

into a pool of digestive enzyme.

It's sticky and sweet down there and once the prey is in there,

the body slowly dissolves.

It's a truly predatory plant.

Oh, my goodness, look at this one!

It's huge!

Look at it!

It's so beautiful,

the markings on the skin,

that aubergine and green colour.

Not only beautiful, but it's an incredible mechanism.

Having seen the pitcher plants up close,

I can totally see why Marianne wanted to paint them.

But I haven't yet seen the most impressive one of all,

the Nepenthes northiana, named after her.

To do that, I have to reach the limestone mountains

where they grow and cross the dense Sarawak jungle.

Marianne North stepped into the realm of the man.

I think she wanted to be taken seriously by her peers.

She didn't want to be perceived as frivolous.

She wanted to be perceived as a serious person.

Part of that seriousness was to travel

and do what it was that she did

and, quite often, in dangerous circumstances.

But with all its dangers,

the wild forest is still a botanical paradise.

"The banks of the river were a continual wonder all the way up.

"It almost took my breath away with its lovely, fairy-like beauty,

"entirely surrounded by virgin forests and grand mountains."

I'm following in Marianne's footsteps,

not only in search of pitcher plants,

but of all the other amazing flora she found.

I'd love to see one of the staghorn ferns that she painted.

Marianne's capturing plants in the wild before they disappear.

It's so dramatic, this scene,

under the canopy of these enormously tall trees.

And these ones that hang over the river, they're almost Jurassic.

They look like prehistoric animals,

you can totally understand why Marianne loved painting them.

'Guiding me through this tangle of trees and vegetation

'is ranger Rosli.'

It's super-humid, isn't it?

-Oh, yes.

-Where are you taking me, Rosli?

I thought I was just coming to look at plants and gentle wildlife!

Well, I'm going to stamp my feet, then.

Not my favourite bit of our trip.

What?

No! My goodness, let's get out of here!

What happened?

Yeah?

In front of you?

No!

Better than you being taken by the python, hey?

I've always thought of mangroves as quite spooky.

And they are.

'By all accounts, including her own,

'our fearless explorer relished being in the wild

'from dawn till dusk.'

"The torment of high society was a penance.

"But through here, at least, was a perfect world of wonders."

The noise here is amazing, isn't it?

Hearing the insect life and the birdlife, animal life.

There he is.

Oh!

Yes.

Yep.

That's extraordinary!

There's nothing quite prepares you

for seeing an animal like this in the wild.

He's a really unusual-looking character.

It's so exciting, it's incredible.

How on earth did Marianne do this?

It's hard to imagine how Marianne coped with the terrain

and the heat in her Victorian dress.

With help, of course,

but carrying all her personal belongings and her art equipment

and she was so anxious to examine the plants

that she didn't want to be carried

in case she missed out on seeing them.

Thank you.

Oh, my goodness!

Is that what I think it is?

-Yes.

-Is it a crinum?

-Yes!

Crinum northianum, named after Marianne?

Yes!

And it is so exactly like what she paints.

Marion's depiction of this species in its natural surroundings

is sent to Kew, where a botanist realises

it's unknown to Western science.

It's officially named after her in 1882.

Marianne North is painting in the wild.

That is a hugely different process as an artist.

She's not assessing the specimen as a scientific illustrator would.

Rather, she is in there making a very emotional representation.

I can see why she fell in love with it here.

But behind this enchanting natural beauty,

Marianne faces many hidden dangers.

This is an age of primitive medicine.

Travel's a risk, tropical disease is rife and Marianne isn't immune.

"I had a terrible attack of my old pain.

"I was too weak to think of starting on any expedition for some time."

Over the course of her travels, she comes down with typhoid, influenza,

rheumatic fever, not to mention broken bones.

What she did was hard and treacherous.

But she never gave up.

And neither will I.

I'm back on the hunt for that special pitcher plant,

the elusive Nepenthes northiana.

It's rare, lives at high altitude,

and finding it is not for the faint-hearted.

Like Marianne, I have to travel 15 miles into the jungle

over broken bridges, through narrow caves, up Jurassic-like roots,

to reach the only place where the Nepenthes northiana might be found -

the ancient limestone mountains of Tegora.

When making her way through trackless terrain,

Marianne North has only one rule -

"not going willingly anywhere where I could not see my feet."

'But if I have any hope of seeing the Nepenthes northiana,

'I have to follow my own rules.

'The only way is up.'

Yeah. Good.

Ready to climb.

INDISTINCT INSTRUCTION OK.

Let's see if there are any here.

Where are you?

No.

I think that's them!

The elusive Nepenthes northiana.

They're much redder than the pitcher plants I've already seen

and they've got a much larger mouth.

So high up.

Out of reach, but not out of sight.

I'm so excited!

Wow!

What a view!

It's absolutely incredible and worth all the sweat and climbing

to have caught a glimpse of this rare treasure

in its natural habitat.

And it was special when Marianne found it

because no-one had ever seen it before.

But it's even more special for me

because the Nepenthes northiana might not be around for much longer.

This particular species is now endangered,

its habitat being destroyed by pesticides and quarrying -

a fact that Marianne recognised 150 years ago.

"It broke one's heart to think of man the civiliser

"wasting treasures in a few years

"to which savages and animals had done no harm for centuries."

In spite of her discovery, there is no stopping Miss North.

She then travels across southern Asia,

ending up in India for 15 months,

where she painted over 200 pictures.

She finally returns to London in 1879.

BIG BEN CHIMES

What she finds is a very different scene

to when she abandoned British shores ten years ago.

Scientists, artists and London society

are now starting to take her seriously.

Marianne exhibits some of her work at the Conduit Street Gallery.

Many flock to the event,

proving to the world that she is a true botanical explorer

as well as an artist.

"I am so puffed up with praise bestowed on my Tenerife work.

"I'm weak enough to like flattery better than snubbing!"

She was overwhelmed by the attention,

and soon an idea began to form in her mind.

Later that year, while waiting for a train at Shrewsbury Station,

she wrote to Sir Joseph Hooker,

asking if he would accept her paintings as a gift to Kew.

"It would be a great happiness

"to know my life had not been spent in vain -

"that I can leave something behind

"which will add to the pleasure of others."

Marianne refers to her first exhibition paintings

as "my children from Conduit Street".

After her father's death, it is art, not relationships,

that she yearns for.

In fact, she describes marriage as a terrible experiment.

Marianne North was pursued by suitors,

but she never followed through.

She wasn't particularly serious about their affections towards her.

"I have no love to give you, or anyone.

"It has all gone with him.

"I have not the smallest intention of marrying you or anybody else."

But there is one man who would become Marianne's closest friend

since her father. In him, she finds a soulmate.

With the case of Dr Burnell,

North is very taken by him, I think.

She admires his intellect.

"Dear Dr Burnell,

"I am not the only one to whom it will be a joy to see you again.

"There must be very many."

I think it was a deliberate choice not to marry

because it may well have stifled her project.

"So, you need not fear my designs on your freedom."

For Marianne, marriage meant a loss of freedom.

If she had have married,

her finances would have become her husband's.

Inevitably, marriage would have also constrained her

in terms of how she chose to live.

Since her father died, she didn't know what to do with herself,

other than paint.

She did carry that grief around with her

and I don't think that she would have known how to really sit still.

It does make me think that it was her love

for plant hunting and painting that left no room for anything else.

Her work IS her life.

But her life's work extended far beyond just her paintings.

She wanted recognition,

to make an indelible impression on the scientific establishment,

and she did just that.

I'm back at Kew, to find out exactly how Marianne made her mark

on the male-dominated world of natural science.

Kew was and is the unrivalled authority on botanical research.

In the days before genetics,

microscopy and high-res photography,

a carefully dried specimen would be sent here, to the herbarium,

to be described and recorded.

So this looks like a very old specimen to me.

Yes, this is quite old.

This is a kniphofia.

Otherwise known as the red-hot poker?

Yes. Commonly known as the red-hot poker.

It's actually Kniphofia northiae,

named after the lady who collected it.

-Marianne North.

-Yes, Marianne North.

And she did so in 1883, when she made a painting of it.

I can actually show you what this looks like,

which is in here,

when I can find the right page.

-There we are.

-Ah!

So, a little bit more recognisable, perhaps, as a red-hot poker there.

-Yes.

-Than this dried specimen here, which has obviously lost its colour.

It is very, very old.

It is very old and very precious.

'The red-hot poker is only one of the four species,

'including a genus, named after Marianne.

'There is the Northea seychellana,

'the beautiful Crinum northianum that I spotted in the jungle,

'and, of course, the magnificent Nepenthes northiana.'

I can't believe that I'm actually seeing it here.

Is that quite unusual,

to have your name permanently attached to a plant?

Yes, it is. I mean,

there are obviously lots of people who have a plant named after them.

-Right.

-But generally speaking, they were professionals.

Marianne wasn't a professional scientist herself.

And so, yes, it was really quite unusual.

-Incredible.

-Yes, she was quite an incredible woman

-in many, many respects.

-Yeah.

'There's no doubt that Marianne's artistic vision

'was drastically radical in its time.

'Traditional scientific illustration

'depicts a single plant on a white background,

'whereas Marianne places the plant in its natural habitat,

'surrounded by other plants and animals -

'a vision that reflected a controversial

'and essentially Darwinian perspective.'

And what was her relationship to Darwin and Darwin's theories?

He'd known her since she was a child,

because he was a friend of her father's.

So we know that he very much appreciated her artwork

and I think that was because they did bring to life his theories

and made them more understandable for the average person.

Marianne read Darwin's Origin Of Species, published in 1859.

From then on, she eagerly embraces his theory of evolution.

"He was, in my eyes, the greatest man living.

"The most truthful, as well as the most selfless and modest.

"Always trying to give others, rather than himself,

"the credit of his own great thoughts and work."

In 1880, Darwin bestowed her with the highest accolade.

"I was much flattered at his wishing to see me.

"And when he said he thought I ought not to attempt

"any representation of the vegetation of the world

"until I had seen and painted the Australian,

"I determined to take it as a royal command and to go at once."

Marianne spends close to a year travelling across Australia,

Tasmania and New Zealand.

She produces over 300 pictures,

which she proudly shares with Darwin.

"I am so glad that I have seen your Australian pictures.

"I am often able to call up with considerable vividness

"scenes which I have seen, but my mind in this respect

"must be a mere barren waste compared with your mind.

"I remain, dear Miss North, yours truly obliged, Charles Darwin."

What would you say Marianne's place in botanical history is?

She's left us a really quite important legacy.

I mean, as well as the plants that she actually discovered,

she is one of the first people

who has really taken these images of plants

in their natural environment and used it to educate and inform

at a more popular level.

These are to help the public understand the botanical world.

I think we find Marianne North's paintings so fascinating

because we see her abandoning herself to her instincts,

following these Darwinian theories and mixing those together.

That's what we admire and can appreciate now,

rather than seeing just a sort of rule-breaking eccentric.

Marianne North dedicated her life

to preserving our most precious asset - nature.

Yet that dream came at a price.

The relentless travelling and persistent illnesses she suffered

claimed her life at the young age of 59.

And it's here at Kew, the place she loved and respected most,

where her greatest legacy lives -

the Marianne North Gallery.

Sir Joseph Hooker accepted her proposal and this humble building,

built at her own expense, opened in 1882.

It houses the longest permanent solo exhibition

by a female artist in the world.

SHE GASPS

This is spectacular!

This is the most beautiful...

I mean, it's phenomenal.

And in a time before colour photography,

you can see how important these pictures are.

To record these environments, these plants, the animals...

There's the pitcher plant...

Pitcher PLANTS that I saw in Borneo.

I mean, there's such a vivid documentation.

It shows you how important it was that she learnt to paint with oil

because that has perfectly preserved the colours.

Mangosteen.

Staghorn fern.

It's so exciting seeing them here, having actually been to Borneo!

I can't quite believe it.

The Marianne North Gallery functions much like a moving image, almost,

as one travels through

and I think she was very aware of the visitor moving their own body

through her gallery and thereby travelling the world,

taking in one place at a time

and really being able to visit all of those places that she recorded.

This is an art gallery like no other.

All 832 of Marianne's paintings fill each and every wall,

floor to ceiling,

a permanent record of the five continents

and the 17 countries she travelled to.

'Someone who knows these snapshots of the world inside out

'is former gallery curator Laura Giuffrida.'

Lovely to meet you.

So this is Jamaica.

This is where she started her travels to the tropics.

So she spent five months here

and of course, you can imagine the longing to see the tropics.

-Yes.

-She stepped off the boat and then was literally in ecstasy.

'Marianne's passion for adventure never faded.

'From Jamaica to Japan, South Africa to the Seychelles,

'she captured the world's plants.'

Across to Chile, and this is where Marianne made her last voyage.

She was very tired at this stage.

-I'm not surprised!

-But she was determined,

determined to find and paint the blue puya.

She rode up the mountain,

she got off on foot

and there they were - a revealed stand of the blue puyas.

Breathtaking!

It was an idea of presenting nature, free to the public to come and view.

Nobody really accomplished that

and so she does something quite extraordinary

in that she presents what the men couldn't.

It really is the world in one room, isn't it?

-It is, exactly!

-She's captured it.

And that's quite a legacy, isn't it, for her?

It really, really is a legacy.

This is all about her passion, her intensity,

-all captured here within this gallery.

-Yes.

I think Marianne North was ahead of her time

in relation to how she was able to present that gallery.

If you would look at the way that museums operate today,

they're bringing in that kind of spectacle.

What a vision! In fact, I've got the original plans.

-So, can I show you?

-Yes, please!

-So, we open very carefully...

-Wow!

-You hold on to that end.

-I will.

Isn't it amazing to think that she was holding this piece of paper?

Absolutely. I think of her there with her ruler

and her little pencil in the gaslight or whatever

of Victoria Street.

They're all numbered.

So this is her plan, in fact, for this wall.

The absolute lack of any space in between the paintings

echoes the way in which there was almost no space

other than the paintings in her life.

I mean, it's so careful, isn't it?

It's like a jigsaw puzzle.

In some cases, she did have to add little extensions on.

-Oh, did she?

-If you look very carefully,

-you can actually see where she's added pieces to the frame.

-Yes.

I mean, it feels like she was quite obsessive

in almost everything that she did, really.

Yes, I think so. I think she had to visit, you know,

her 17 countries to capture the plants that she wanted to paint

and I think this gallery, condensing them all here,

is a reflection of that.

I feel that Marianne's paintings

were definitely a sort of mechanism for survival.

That's the one overriding feeling you get when you go to the gallery

is that it is the product of an obsessive mind,

those sort of 800-odd paintings crammed into this space

give you a real sense of how hard she worked during that time.

Despite exhaustion, Marianne is bent on doing things her own way.

Part of her vision for the gallery

is to offer tea and coffee to the public.

But Kew refuses.

Now, anybody other than Marianne would just take that and accept it.

But not Marianne North.

She took her case to the House of Commons

and they, too, turned it down.

Here she was, battling against government,

battling against Parliament,

against a male-dominated world

and she's determined to get her own way.

So she decided - very cunningly, I think -

to paint the plant of the tea and coffee in the gallery.

So, over one doorway, we have tea

and over the other, coffee.

It shows she had not only a determination, steely determination,

but she also had a sense of humour, and that's what I like about them.

I wish there were more Mariannes in the world.

Seeing the paintings and feeling the atmosphere in here,

it's much more about her love of nature and the wonder of nature.

I think that she just wanted other people to know

and to celebrate nature in the way that she felt it.

I believe you're right.

I don't think there was any pretension.

See just had the passion to see plants

and to capture them, to paint them.

-Makes me want to cry!

-She was amazing. She was amazing.

-She was an incredible woman.

-She was amazing.

I think Marianne North was happy to break artistic rules,

was happy to break scientific rules,

in order to produce a vision that was very much her own

and that is what was so unique about her as a woman in the 19th century

and what makes her very inspiring today.

"Begin now by observing as much as you can of what nature teaches

"and you will find a new happiness in life."

I'm actually a bit sad that my journey with Marianne

is coming to an end.

But I feel so privileged to have been invited into her family,

to have read her personal writings and memoirs,

and to have travelled in her footsteps in breathtaking Borneo.

And now, I can embrace all of that

seeing these life-affirming paintings.

I have wandered through her world and wondered at her world.

I only wish I could have met her.