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People & Organisations
Person

Watt, Sir George

  • GB/NNAF/P146174
  • Person
  • 1851-1930

Born Aberdeenshire 1851; died Dumfriesshire 1930
After graduating with an MB from Glasgow University in 1872, George Watt was appointed Professor of Botany at the University of Calcutta in 1873 which in turn led to his entry into the Indian Government Service. His many appointments during 22 years in the service ranged from Secretary of the Indian Revenue and Agricultural Department 1884, Commissioner for India at the Colonial Exhibition London 1885-86, President of the Pharmacological Section, Indian Medical Congress 1894, Officer in Charge Industrial Museum, Calcutta 1894-1903, and Reporter on Economic Products to Government of India 1887-1903. He retired from the Indian Service in 1903 and returned to Britain where he continued scientific research. In 1912 he visited Portuguese West Africa to study cocoa cultivation and for 5 years lectured on Indian botany at Edinburgh University. He was a prolific author drawing on experience in his many Indian postings. After 1910 he became actively involved in county life around his home in Lockerbie, serving on the county council, the local education authority and as a JP.
Sources: R. Desmond ‘Dictionary of British and Irish Botanists and Horticulturalists; obituary folder.
D.W.

Ward, Frank Kingdon

  • GB/NNAF/P276148; VIAF ID: 20473671 (Personal); ISNI: 0000 0001 0877 3903
  • Person
  • 1885-1958

Born Manchester 1885, died London 1958
Frank Kingdon-Ward took part one of the natural sciences tripos at Cambridge but was forced to leave university after 2 years when the death of his father left the family impoverished. After teaching in Shanghai, in 1909 he joined an American zoological expedition up the Yangtze to the borders of Tibet which gave him a lifelong passion for exploration. Through a family contact he became a professional plant collector for AK Bulley of Bee’s Nursery (replacing George Forrest), setting off to south west China for a year long expedition in 1911. A second commission saw him returning to the Himalayas in 1913-14 before moving west into Burma, Assam and Tibet. After serving in the army in the First World War he returned to collecting with a successful fifth expedition in the upper section of the Brahmaputra in 1924-25 where he collected 97 different rhododendrons as well as the elusive blue poppy <i>Meconopsis betonicifolia</i> which became one of the most prized garden plants. As a botanist Kingdon-Ward had an excellent knowledge of several plant groups including primulas, lilies and gentians as well as rhododendrons and poppies and also published on plant geography. A plantsman and horticultural ‘connoisseur’ with a flair for collecting good flower forms, he was a keen observer of scenery and an excellent photographer. His main reputation however was as an explorer and one of the last great plant collectors (he went on 25 expeditions in total, latterly with his second wife) with the temperament and resilience to work, usually alone, in challenging and largely uncharted country.
Sources: Dictionary of National Biography; Gardeners Chronicle 1958; obituary folder; (R. Desmond ‘Dictionary of British and Irish Botanists and Horticulturalists).
D.W.

Sutherland, James

  • SUT
  • Person
  • 1638/9-1719

Born c 1638/39; died Edinburgh 1719.
Little is known of Sutherland’s early life but by the 1670s he was responsible for maintaining the original Edinburgh botanic gardens at St. Anne’s Yards near Holyroodhouse. In 1676 was appointed ‘intendant’ of the new Edinburgh Physic Garden, leased by the town council at a site near Trinity Hospital (later known as the Botanic Garden) where his responsibilities included teaching botany to medical students. He built an international network of correspondents who sent him seeds and plants and he is credited with the introduction a number of new species including the common larch. By the early 1680s the Trinity Hospital garden contained over 2000 plants, described by Sutherland in his ‘Hortus Medicus Edinburgensis’. The Garden was heavily damaged in 1689 during the siege of Edinburgh Castle when the Nor’ Loch drained into its grounds and Sutherland supervised its repair and successful renovation. In 1695 he was appointed to a new post as professor of botany at Edinburgh University and in the same year he assumed responsibility for planting the Town College Garden (known as the Physick Garden) as well as the running of the private Royal Garden at Holyrood, known as the Kings Garden. In recognition of his contribution he became the King’s Botanist under a royal warrant of William III in 1699. In 1706 he resigned from his professorship and the town and college keeper posts, though in 1710 in a Warrant of Queen Anne he was created the first Regius Professor of Botany for the Royal Garden, a rival to the University. In retirement he continued his botanical work as well as his specialist interest in coins and medals.
Sources: Dictionary of National Biography; HR Fletcher and WH Brown ‘The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh 1670-1970’; Deni Bown, ‘4 Gardens in One’; (R. Desmond ‘Dictionary of British and Irish Botanists and Horticulturalists).
D.W.

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