The Little Sketches Hidden in John Templeton's Hibernian Flora

John Templeton (1766–1825) is often known as the "Father of Irish Botany". A Belfast-born naturalist, he spent decades exploring the Irish landscape, recording the plants he encountered and corresponding with scientists across Britain and Ireland. Although his monumental Hibernian Flora, a detailed national flora, was never published, it remains one of the most significant records of Ireland's flora from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century and is now cared for by National Museums NI.

When you picture a botanical manuscript, you probably imagine page after page of carefully organised plant descriptions. That's certainly what you'll find in John Templeton's Hibernian Flora, the 5-volume unpublished work that helped earn him the title "the father of Irish botany."

Through currently ongoing digitization and analysis of the Hibernian Flora we are discovering that it is much more than just a catalogue of plants. Scattered throughout the pages are delightful surprises: sketches of birds on the back of plant descriptions, detailed drawings of fish, insects and shells. They appear almost unexpectedly, as though Templeton simply couldn't resist putting pencil to paper whenever something caught his eye. These illustrations are often easy to miss, but they reveal something important about the man behind the manuscript.

Templeton is remembered today as one of Ireland's greatest botanists. His Hibernian Flora documents thousands of observations on Irish plants and represents decades of patient fieldwork. Yet the sketches hidden among the botanical notes remind us that he wasn't interested only in plants. Like many naturalists of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, Templeton was fascinated by the whole natural world. Birds, insects, fungi, fish, shells and mammals all captured his attention. If something seemed interesting or beautiful, it was worth observing. Rather than seeing nature in separate categories, Templeton saw it as one connected world. Some drawings are surprisingly detailed. Others are little more than quick outlines, dashed off on what he would have considered scrap paper.

They feel wonderfully human.

These weren't illustrations prepared for publication. They were personal observations, moments of curiosity captured as he worked. You can almost imagine him pausing in the middle of writing about a plant before noticing a bird outside the window or recalling an interesting fish he had recently examined. Those spontaneous sketches make the manuscript feel less like a formal scientific document and more like a working notebook belonging to someone genuinely excited by the world around him.

The sketches also remind us that observation was one of a naturalist's most valuable skills. Photography didn't exist as a tool for field recording during Templeton’s time, so drawing helped naturalists remember what they had seen. Even a quick sketch could capture the shape of a bird's beak, the pattern of a fish's fins or the form of an unusual shell. Not every drawing needed to become a finished artwork. Sometimes the act of sketching itself was part of understanding. Templeton's pages show that science and art often worked hand in hand.

One of the pleasures of working with historical manuscripts is discovering details that have been locked away for hundreds of years. It's easy to focus on the scientific importance of the Hibernian Flora, its plant records, species descriptions and contribution to Irish botany. Those achievements are undoubtedly remarkable. But the sketches tell a different story.

They show a man whose curiosity extended far beyond his main subject. Someone who noticed beauty in unexpected places. Someone who recorded the natural world not simply because it was useful, but because he genuinely enjoyed looking at it. More than two hundred years later, those little drawings still make us smile. They remind us that behind every great scientific manuscript was a real person with habits, interests and moments of distraction. Sometimes, the smallest marks on a page reveal the most about its creator.

So next time you look at an old book or notebook, don't just read the words. Take a moment to explore the little details. You never know what treasure might be waiting to be discovered.