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http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/396049/Sir-Ferdinand-von-Mueller

Born in 1807, the son of a farmer at Blackhouse, near Peterhead, William Brand was initially educated in parish schools before being apprenticed to Writers (solicitors) in Peterhead then in Edinburgh where he entered legal classes at the University. Having completed his legal education he became a Writer to the Signet in 1834 and a partner in the Edinburgh firm of Scott, Findlay and Balderston. In 1846 he was elected Secretary to the Union Bank of Scotland, a position he held until his death. In 1863 he was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
Whilst completing his medical degree at Edinburgh University, Brand developed a strong interest in botany, accompanying Professor Robert Graham (Regius Keeper of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh and Professor of Botany at Edinburgh University) on collecting excursions throughout Scotland during 1830 and 1831. In 1836, when meetings were being held to discuss the creation of a new Botanical Society, Brand was there. He attended the inaugural meeting of the Botanical Society of Edinburgh on the 8th February 1836 making him a founding member and also logical choice for its first Treasurer. He developed ideas for a number of Society publications, devised methods for arranging and cataloguing the Society’s herbarium and collected a significant herbarium collection himself, discovering several new plants including <i>Astragalus alpinus</i> in the process.
He was also a member of the Botanical Society Club, an offshoot of the Botanical Society of Edinburgh initially comprising its original members, becoming its Secretary. At the last Club meeting he attended, in June 1869, he complained of feeling ill. After a couple of months he recovered enough to visit relatives in Peterhead, but became ill again on his return home, dying on October 15th 1869. He left behind a widow, a son and two daughters.
DW and LP

born at Bu of Hoy, Orkney on 29th November 1913, and died at Kirkwall, Orkney, 15th February 1968, James Sinclair obtained a BSc at Edinburgh University in 1936, became a teacher on Orkney where he also studied algae. He worked as a botanist at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh between 1946 and 1948, moving to become Curator of the Herbarium of the Botanic Gardens in Singapore between 1948 and 1963. He collected plants in Malaya, Borneo, Indonesia and the Philippines.

Born Suffolk 1817, died Berkshire 1911
Joseph Hooker graduated MD from Glasgow University though a passion for botany had developed through attending his father’s (William Jackson Hooker) lectures from the age of 7. Inspired by Darwin’s voyage of the Beagle, he was appointed assistant surgeon and then expedition’s botanist aboard the HMS Erebus in 1839 which spent 4 years exploring the southern oceans. Returning to England he worked on ‘The Botany of the Antarctic Voyages ‘plates, the book eventually being published in 6 volumes in the 1840s and 1850s. He was asked by Darwin to assist in classifying plants Darwin had gathered in the Galapagos; this was the start of a lifelong correspondence and friendship. Hooker acted as a sounding board and later research collaborator for Darwin’s emerging thinking on natural selection. Hooker’s central interest was in the geographical distribution of plants and how species migrated. This had practical applications in the search for new plants and transplanting crops between British colonies for economic exploitation. In 1845 he failed to be appointed professor of botany at Edinburgh University but the following year was appointed botanist to the Geological Survey which led to valuable series of papers. Between 1847 and 1851 Hooker travelled to Sikkim, India and Nepal, collecting 7,000 species including 25 new rhododendrons. In 1855 was appointed assistant director at Kew, under his father William Hooker. He succeeded his father as Director in 1865, by which time he was a highly regarded botanist with an international reputation. He remained Director at Kew until his retirement in 1885. These 20 years saw the expansion of Kew’s imperial role e.g. in facilitating the transfer of cinchona from South America to India and rubber from Brazil to several British colonies. Hooker strove to maintain Kew’s scientific reputation by limiting public access and resisting proposals to transfer Kew’s herbaria to the Natural History Museum. A prolific author, he was elected president of the Royal Society in 1873 and was highly regarded in his lifetime, receiving numerous honours, honorary degrees and prizes.
Sources: Dictionary of National Biography; R. Desmond ‘Dictionary of British and Irish Botanists and Horticulturalists; Journal of Botany 1912
D.W.

Born Lanarkshire 1685 (or 1683); died Edinburgh 1760
Charles Alston initially attended Glasgow University and then spent time in legal training through the patronage of the Duchess of Hamilton, before eventually being employed as her ‘principal servant’ where he was able to use his leisure time to study medicine. When the position of superintendent of the physic garden at the Palace of Holyrood in Edinburgh became vacant in 1715, the Duchess used her political influence to secure the post for her protégé. She acquired a commission from George I appointing him King’s Botanist in 1716, a post he held for life. He then returned to Glasgow to obtain a degree, taking a year out to study under Herman Boerhaave at Leiden, before graduating in 1719. After this his reputation developed rapidly. He was elected to the fellowship of the Royal College of Physicians in 1721 and appointed Secretary in 1725, a post he held for 21 years. He taught botany and materia medica at Edinburgh University where he played a major part in enhancing the international reputation of the medical school, and he was appointed professor in 1738, thereby combining the commission of the Kings Botanist in Scotland with the Chair of Botany at the University of Edinburgh, a pattern set for the next two centuries forging a link between the Garden's collections and the University's research and teaching. By 1746 Alston's reputation and stipend (from the Town Council, Patrons of the Chair) were such that he could take on the revival of the University’s botanical garden at Trinity Hospital. The city’s original Garden at St. Anne’s Yard and the Royal Garden at Holyrood also thrived under Alston. Alston first published in 1740 an index to plants demonstrated to pupils in the Botanic Garden. His research interests latterly focused on the medicinal qualities of quick-lime and water. He also made an ‘ill-judged’ attack on the Linnaean sexual system of plant classification.
Sources: DNB; Fletcher & Brown's ‘The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh 1670-1970’; Desmond's Dictionary; Bown's '4 Gardens in 1'
by D.W.

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.