Saffron Cultivation

Sir Hans Sloane’s brow creased into a frown as he read the letter in his hand. The urgently dashed off script looked fraught. The words in the missive confirmed that the writer was indeed in a state of desperation. ‘Should I miss one day of Publication the whole design will be destroyed,’ pleaded Richard Bradley.¹ Bradley, the Professor of Botany at Cambridge University, had done some studies with plants and it concerned Sloane to hear of his present predicament.

The dilemma facing Bradley in September 1727 was lack of money. In order to get his latest pamphlet printed he needed to pay some stamp duty and lacked the funds to pay this tax.² So he reached out to the one person he believed would be sympathetic to his plight – the President of the Royal Society, Sir Hans Sloane.