Carpenter, Edwin Lankester, Griffith, Daubeny and Williamson. His lectureship to the Society of Apothecaries began in 1835, and in 1841 in which year the Gardeners' Chronicle was founded, he became editor of that periodical. This post he held till his death in 1865.
It might be supposed that the multifariousness and onerousness of Lindley's official and routine duties left little time for other work. Yet Lindley made time not only for scientific investigation and for the writing of numerous monographs and text-books; but also for a large and varied amount of public work. In the Lindley correspondence preserved at Kew are to be found letters and papers (official correspondence 1832–1854) criticising trenchantly the mismanagement of the Royal forests and recommendations on the selection and cultivation of trees for the charcoal employed in the manufacture of gunpowder.
Lindley, together with Hooker, acted as adviser to the Commissioners of the Admiralty with respect to the planting of the Island of Ascension.
The potato famine was the occasion of an official visit to Ireland and led to a report by Lindley, Sir Robert Kaye and Sir Lyon Playfair which was the immediate cause of the Repeal of the Corn Laws. As Sir Robert Peel told Lindley "in the face of the Report, the repeal could no longer be avoided." Thus the potato takes rank with the chance word, the common soldier, the girl at the door of an inn that have changed or almost changed the fate of nations.
Lindley and Kew.
But of all Lindley's public works that which he undertook for the saving of Kew from destruction is of the most immediate interest to botanists. In 1838 a small committee consisting of Lindley, Paxton and J. Wilson (gardener to the Earl of Surrey) were commissioned to report on the state of the Royal Gardens. After exposing the incompetence and extravagance of the then administration Lindley recommended that the Royal Gardens, Kew, should be made over to the nation and should become the
