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Born 1915 Argyllshire; died Argyllshire 1989
Archie Kenneth, a 'fine Highland gentleman' was born on the 6th June 1915 at Shirvan, Lochgilphead, Argyll. He never knew his father as he died at Gallipoli just over a month after his birth; his mother was Katherine Louisa nee Graham-Campbell of Shirvan. After being educated in England, Archie Kenneth settled down as a country gentleman and amateur botanist on his estate at Ardrishaig in Argyllshire, where, following his mother's passion he cultivated specimens of rhododendron. During the Second World War he served in the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders in France.
As a botanist he specialised in marsh orchids and in the hawkweeds of Wester Ross and Sutherland contributing to Cunningham’s’ ‘The Flora of Kintyre’, but his expertise and involvement ranged much wider than that. He became a member of the B.S.B.I. in 1957 and botanised and recorded extensively throughout Perthshire, Argyll, Kintyre, Westerness, Ross-shire, Sutherland and the Outer Hebrides - the bulk of the his notebooks now stored in the RBGE Archives relate to his exploration of Knapdale - VC101.
However it is as a traditional musician and composer and editor of pipe music that he is better known. In 1947 he was elected to the music committee of the Piobaireachd Society and became editor of its 15 volume published collection in 1963. His interests in traditional music ranged from Gaelic song and Scottish fiddle music through to new wave rock and he is remembered through an annual amateur piobaireachd competition for the Archie Kenneth Quaich.
He died after a brief battle with lung cancer on the 27th July 1989 at the age of 74.
Information from this biography came from: The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, v.31 (2004), pp.280-1; Watsonia, v.18 (1990), pp.242-4; the B.S.B.I. Scottish Newsletter (1990), pp.4-7; R. Desmond ‘Dictionary of British and Irish Botanists and Horticulturalists’; Piobaireachd Society website
D.W. and L.P.

Born Edinburgh 1883; died Edinburgh 1953.
James Johnstone studied botany as part of his M.A. degree at Edinburgh University and as a young man assisted his father in his antiquarian bookshop, gaining a sound knowledge of books, bookbinding and printing. In 1912 he was appointed, by Prof. Isaac Bayley Balfour, to become the first librarian at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh whose library had, by that time, grown to a considerable size. It was housed in various rooms and corridors and the system used to find each of the 4,000 volumes was to record the location on its cover and in a master catalogue. Johnstone held the library post for 35 years, but included time spent in the army during the First World War, and for many years was also Assistant Secretary to the Botanical Society of Edinburgh and edited its Transactions. He also edited and contributed to ‘Notes from the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh’ which Bayley Balfour had established in 1900 as the official scientific publication of the Garden. James Johnstone retired in 1946 and died in 1953.
Sources:HR Fletcher and WH Brown ‘The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh 1670-1970’; Deni Bown, ‘4 Gardens in One’
D.W.

Born 1941

After taking a BSc and PhD at the University of Hull, David Ingram was appointed research fellow in the botany department at Glasgow University in 1966, before moving to Cambridge in 1969 where he became first a lecturer in 1974 then, in 1988, reader in plant pathology; he was also Fellow, Tutor and Director of Studies in Biology at Downing College. In 1990 he was appointed Regius Keeper at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, a post he held until 1998. During his time as Keeper David Ingram initiated and oversaw a wealth of dynamic changes in the Garden. His period of office saw the founding of a new commercial arm – the Botanics Trading Company (BTC), and the setting up of the Friends of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. He reemphasised the pre-eminence of plant science, establishing new Molecular and Ultrastructure research laboratories and established a Scientific Advisory Group to provide international research links. His enthusiasm for education led to the creation of new courses in both Horticulture (HND Plantsmanship) and Science (MSc Biodiversity & Taxonomy of Plants) the latter a joint course with the University of Edinburgh, and fuelled expansion in the public face of the four gardens. David Ingram was also passionate about teaching young people the importance of plant science in a dynamic new way, and helped to set up the Science and Plants for Schools (SAPS) initiative which enables active experimentation in the classroom. Since his retirement from the Garden in 1998 he has been advisor to the University of Edinburgh on public engagement with science, has served on many related trusts, boards and panels, and has contributed to a range of publications on plant pathology, plant tissue and botany and his wider interests in culture and the history of art.
Sources: Who’s Who 2015; Deni Bown, ‘4 Gardens in One’; foyer panel.
D.W.

Born Perthshire 1927, died Ross-shire 2007
Douglas Henderson graduated BSc in botany from Edinburgh University in 1948, joining the civil service as a scientific officer in the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries that year. He moved to the Royal Botanic Garden as a senior scientific officer in 1951 and was head of the non-flowering plant collections until 1970. He was library supervisor from 1961 to 1970 and also lectured in botany and plant physiology. A mycologist by training, he was involved in the start of the British Fungus Flora project and co-authored a book on British Rust Fungi. He became an authority on British flora, especially the plants of the Highlands. Douglas Henderson was appointed Regius Keeper of the Royal Botanic Garden in 1970. His time in office saw extensive developments in the Garden including completion of new glasshouses, a new alpine area and an expanded range of exhibition houses. The wider estate also grew with the acquisition of Dawyck Botanic Garden in Peeblesshire. During his period of office herbarium specimens increased by 250,000 to 1.8 million, including collections from an expanding programme of worldwide botanical explorations. And there was a rapid expansion of the library with a doubling of stock to 75,000 volumes and a developing international reputation; he personally led the introduction of the first electron microscope. Inverleith House in the centre of the gardens was re-opened as an exhibition space and Henderson was active in encouraging public engagement and growing educational links. Towards the end of Henderson’s term of office in 1986 the Royal Botanic Garden gained new status as a non-departmental public body accountable to a Board of Trustees. Douglas Henderson was awarded the CBE in 1985 and retired in 1987, moving to Wester Ross where initially he took on the role of administrator of the National Trust gardens at Inverewe.
Sources: Deni Bown, ‘4 Gardens in One’; obituary folder
D.W. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/douglas-henderson-twelfth-regius-keeper-of-the-royal-botanic-garden-edinburgh-760076.html

Born Cyprus 1907; died 2003
Hagop "David" Davidian graduated in botany from Edinburgh University in 1946 and in 1947 was offered a post at Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh by Sir William Wright Smith, Regius Keeper, to work on the taxonomy of rhododendrons. Rhododendrons became his life long specialism and enthusiasm. He contributed regularly to the RHS Rhododendron and Camellia Yearbook and at one stage identified 2,000 rhododendrons from the Arnold Arboretum in the USA. Honoured twice by the RHS and in Sweden, after his retirement in 1972 he set to work writing, in four volumes, books on the genus based on the Balfourian system.
Source; cuttings and obituary files
D.W.

Born Hampshire 1805; died Edinburgh 1876.
Educated in Ayr, Edinburgh and at the universities of Glasgow and Edinburgh, James Crauford became an advocate in 1829, building a criminal practice in the justiciary and church courts. In 1849 he became sheriff of Perthshire and in 1853 was appointed solicitor-general for Scotland. He was made a lord of the court of session and then a lord of justiciary in 1855, taking the courtesy title of Lord Ardmillan after the name of his father’s estate in Ayrshire. He held both posts until his death at his residence in Charlotte Square, Edinburgh.
Source: Dictionary of National Biography
D.W.

Born 1863; died 1943
Alex Cowan was the grandson of Alexander Cowan, a papermaker and local benefactor of Valleyfield House, Penicuik, Midlothian. Educated at Loretto School and Cambridge University he developed a love of the flowers and ferns which grew in the gardens of Valleyfield House and his home, Dalhousie Castle as well as the family’s country seat at Logan. He acquired plants while travelling in Europe and established an important fern collection. Cowan was made a fellow of the Botanical Society of Edinburgh in 1900 and was later its President from 1937 to 1939. He was secretary of the Alpine Botanical Club between 1903 and 1924 and, reflecting his knowledge of and interest in ferns, was President of the British Pteridological Society from 1909 to 1920. In his later years he developed an interest in breeding sheep in his farms in the Pentland Hills. Following the family tradition of public service he was Provost of Penicuik Town Council for nine years and served on Midlothian County Council for forty.
Sources: R. Desmond ‘Dictionary of British and Irish Botanists and Horticulturalists’; Transactions of Botanical Society of Edinburgh obituary 1943
D.W.

Born Denbighshire 1873; died London 1945
Educated at Loretto School, Musselburgh and gaining a BA at Oxford University in 1896, Frederick Balfour was initially employed in his family firm in London. He travelled extensively on business and made several expeditions to the Pacific coast of North America, on one occasion staying there for 4 years, acquiring a deep knowledge of forest trees. He introduced the cultivation of several pines including Picea brewiana and developed the Arboretum at the family estate at Dawyck near Peebles, which he had inherited from his father in 1886. Dawyck was already a well established estate with trees dating back to the late seventeenth century. In 1916 Balfour was sent to France to liaise with the French Army over supplies of timber, being appointed Lieut. Colonel for the purpose. His interest in forestry continued after the war and he travelled extensively to supplement the Dawyck collection. With many business interests and directorships, Balfour was a member of the King’s Bodyguard for Scotland, Royal Company of Archers and a local Justice of the Peace and Vice Lieutenant of the county in Peeblesshire.
Sources: R. Desmond ‘Dictionary of British and Irish Botanists and Horticulturalists’; Gardeners Chronicle 1945; RBGE obituary folder.
D.W.

Born Gloucestershire 1754; died London 1793
William Austin was a polymath. He initially studied botany at Oxford, graduating in 1776, and then medicine gaining his MD in 1783. However he also studied, and sometimes lectured in Hebrew, Arabic, Mathematics and Chemistry being elected professor in1785. In 1786 he moved from Oxford to London, building a lucrative medical practice while continuing his chemical studies. He was elected a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, published papers for the Royal Society on ‘Heavy inflammable air’ and theorised (incorrectly) on the origin of kidney stones and hardening of the arteries.
Source: DNB
D.W.