Born Stirling 1786, died Perthshire 1845
Robert Graham graduated from Edinburgh University in 1808 and was licensed by the Royal College of Surgeons in that year, securing an appointment at Glasgow Royal Infirmary in 1812. There he gave occasional lectures on botany and in 1818 became the first professor of botany at Glasgow University. In 1820 he was appointed Regius Professor of medicine and botany at Edinburgh University and keeper of the Royal Botanic Garden and King’s botanist (a post he held until his death in 1845), and was elected fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1821. As Keeper of the Botanic Garden, Graham was responsible for establishing a new botanical garden on a 14 acre site in Inverleith Row to replace the one in Leith Walk. Over a period of two years he supervised the removal of all trees, shrubs and plants to the new site, sometimes subsidising the wages and expenses of the garden from his own pocket. In 1834 the largest palm house in Britain was opened at the Inverleith garden. In 1836 Graham became the first president of the Botanical Society of Edinburgh and in 1840 was made president of the Royal College of Physicians in Edinburgh. He was a popular lecturer, the first to lecture on botany during the winter months, and was the author of numerous papers on new species of plants, many grown in the Garden. He travelled widely collecting plants through Britain, Jersey and Ireland and embarked on, but never completed, a flora of Great Britain.
Sources: Dictionary of National Biography; R. Desmond ‘Dictionary of British and Irish Botanists and Horticulturalists; HR Fletcher and WH Brown ‘The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh 1670-1970’; Deni Bown, ‘4 Gardens in One’.
D.W.
Robert Kaye Greville was an English botanist, mycologist and bryologist. He was also an excellent illustrator.
Scottish botanist and plant collector, brother of James Drummond. Took over George Don's nursery after his death.
Nurseryman and external lecturer at RBGE. Apple variety bred by and named after him.
Born Fife, 1837; died Edinburgh 1882
John Sadler joined the staff of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh in 1854, working in the propagating department and herbarium before becoming assistant to Regius Keeper Professor J.H. Balfour, a post he held for almost 25 years. He was appointed curator (principal gardener) at the Garden in 1879. An inveterate rambler he gained a great knowledge of the Scottish flora, especially the flora of Perthshire, and discovered many new stations for plants, several of which perpetuate his name. Sadler lectured regularly to the Botanical Society of Edinburgh, which he served as Assistant Secretary from 1858 until 1879. Known as a genial, good natured man his many other professional and social memberships included being a founder member of the Scottish Alpine Botanical Club (1868) and Secretary of the Scottish Arboricultural Society from 1862 to 1879. An all round practical botanist, he was awarded the Neill Prize in 1869 and also lectured in botany at the Royal High School for over 20 years. In 1881 he took charge of the development of the Arboretum, then administered separately from the Garden. While engaged in planting the Arboretum in December snow he caught a chill and died at the age of 45, leaving a widow and 7 children.
Sources: R. Desmond ‘Dictionary of British and Irish Botanists and Horticulturalists; HR Fletcher and WH Brown ‘The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh 1670-1970’; (Deni Bown, ‘4 Gardens in One’); obituary folder.
D.W.
Mycologist
Born Orkney 1856; died Orkney 1939
Educated at Dollar Academy and the Edinburgh Collegiate School, Henry Halcro Johnston took a degree in medicine at Edinburgh University. While at university he played rugby for Scotland, gaining an international cap in 1877. He served in the Army Medical Department in Mauritius, Sudan, The North West Frontier and South Africa from 1881, rising to the rank of Colonel before retiring in 1913. He was re-employed during the First World War, working in hospitals in Gibraltar, Glasgow and York. With a wide range of scientific and botanical interests, he collected herbarium material and seeds throughout his military service around the world. On returning to Orkney in 1919 he was able to concentrate on the botany of the islands, meticulously collecting and documenting his collections, focusing particularly on the microspecies of Taraxacum and Hieracium. Some of his work was published in the Transactions of the Botanical Society of Edinburgh. He was an active member of the Orkney Natural History Society and responsible for organising the herbarium at the Stromness Museum. Most of his botanical collections and notes were bequeathed to the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh.
Sources: R. Desmond ‘Dictionary of British and Irish Botanists and Horticulturalists); obituary folder
D.W.