A formal physic garden was first established on a 5 acre plot of ground, purchased by Dr Richard Walker, Vice-Master of Trinity College, and given to the University in 1762, in trust ‘for the purpose of a public Botanic Garden’. In 1831, largely at the encouragement of the then Professor of Botany, John Stevens Henslow, 38 acres off Trumpington Road were acquired as a larger, more open site for a Botanic Garden: its location to this day. The first permanent Botanic Garden Syndicate was appointed in 1855. The bequest of Reginald Cory in 1934 massively aided garden development after World War II and the expansion of buildings. For the history of the Garden to c. 1960 see S. M. Walters, The Shaping of Cambridge Botany (CUP, 1981) and for contemporary information go to http://www.botanic.cam.ac.uk/.
