Showing 253 results

People & Organisations
Person

Craufurd, James, Lord Ardmillan

  • ARD
  • Person
  • 1805-1876

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.

Davidian, Hagop H.

  • DHH
  • Person
  • 1907-2003

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.

Henderson, Douglas Mackay

  • HDM
  • Person
  • 1927-2007

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

Ingram, Professor David Stanley

  • IDS
  • Person
  • 1941-present

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.

Johnstone, James Todd

  • JJT
  • Person
  • 1883-1953

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.

Kenneth, Archibald Graham

  • KAG
  • Person
  • 1915-1989

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.

Léveillé, A.A. Hector

  • LEV
  • Person
  • 1864-1918

Augustin Léveillé attended medical school prior to entering into the priesthood. In 1887 he travelled to India as a missionary and was then appointed a professor of natural history at the College of Pondicherry. In 1891 he returned to France for health reasons, settling in his hometown of Le Mans. Following a meeting with botanist Adrien René Franchet in 1900, he agreed to perform studies on the many thousands of plant specimens sent by collectors from the Far East. From these shipments Léveillé is credited with describing around 2000 new species with many of the plants being co-described along with Father Eugène Vaniot. In 1892 he founded the magazine Le Monde des Plantes, serving as its director until his death. During the same year he founded the Académie internationale de géographie botanique (International Academy of Botanical Geography). He published several monographs on plants collected from Japan and China as well as a dictionary of French flora in 1916. Numerous species are named in his honour, as well as the genus Leveillea (family Asteraceae). His herbarium was acquired by Scottish botanist George Forrest.
Source: Wikipedia
D.W.

McIntosh, Charles

  • MCI
  • Person
  • 1839-1922

Born Perthshire 1839; died Perthshire 1922
Charles McIntosh, sometimes known as ‘The Perthshire Naturalist’, was a postman whose rounds enabled him to observe and study the local flora and fauna of rural Perthshire. He was a member of the Perthshire Society of Natural Science and later the Cryptogamic Society of Scotland. He became friends with the young Beatrix Potter, then holidaying in the Dunkeld area, through their common interest in fungi, and helped improve the accuracy of her illustrations, taught her taxonomy and supplied live specimens to paint during the winter. McIntosh discovered thirteen species of fungus completely new to Britain and four new to science and some of his collection is now in the City of Perth museum. He contributed to FBW White’s ‘Fl. Perthshire’ published in1898.
Sources: R. Desmond ‘Dictionary of British and Irish Botanists and Horticulturalists’;‘Perthshire Diary’ for 1922; City of Perth Council website
D.W.

Menzies, Archibald

  • MEN
  • Person
  • 1754-1842

Born Perthshire 1754, died London 1842
Archibald Menzies was initially employed as a gardener at the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh (then on Leith Walk) where the Regius Keeper, John Hope, stimulated his interest in botany. In 1778 he toured the Highlands and Hebrides collecting plants and Hope later encouraged him to study medicine. He graduated from Edinburgh University in 1781 and joined the Royal Navy where his career as a naval surgeon took him all over the world. He was chosen as naturalist and surgeon on the Discovery under Captain Vancouver on a long voyage exploring and charting the coasts of north-west America and the Pacific from 1790 to 1795. Menzies made the first recorded ascent by a European of Mauna Loa in Hawaii. He brought back a great variety of plants, cryptogams and natural history objects from his expeditions. He introduced to Britain the monkey puzzle araucaria araucana and wrote the first description of the Douglas fir, pseudotsuga menziesii. In 1790 he was elected fellow of the Linnaean Society in whose transactions he published accounts of his natural history findings during the 1790s as well as publishing an account of the Discovery voyage in the contemporary ‘Magazine of Natural History’. However he tended to rely on other botanists to publicise and interpret his findings and some of his journals were not published until the twentieth century. After retiring from the navy, Menzies practised as a doctor in London and on his death his herbarium of grasses, sedges and cryptogams was bequeathed to the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh.
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.

Stainton, J.D.A.

  • STA
  • Person
  • 1921-1991

Born London 1921; died 1991
J D A (Adam) Stainton was educated at Winchester College and Oxford University where he read history. He joined the Scots Guards in 1940, serving in North Africa, Italy and Northern Europe. After the war he returned to Oxford, completing his degree in 1948. He then worked as a barrister until 1952, but with family wealth abandoned this career to become a plant collector. Having consulted the British Museum (Natural History) on botanical travel he joined, totally at his own expense, Museum expeditions to Nepal in 1954 1956. He went on further collecting trips to Chitral, Greece, Turkey and North Borneo between 1958 and 1961; and from 1962 to 1972 to the Himalayas. Self taught in botany and ecology, Stainton was the author of ‘Forests of Nepal’ (1972) and the photographically illustrated field guides ‘Flowers of the Himalayas’ (with Oleg Polunin 1984) and Supplement (1988). Stainton identified Meconopsis autumnalis, the Nepalese Autumn Poppy and 36 species, mainly from Nepal, bear his name.
Source: WT Stearn ‘Taxon’ International Association for Plant Taxonomy
D.W.

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