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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 Kincardineshire 1892; died Edinburgh 1960
Educated at Gordons College Aberdeen and Edinburgh University graduating MA with honours botany, John Macqueen Cowan completed his training in forestry at Oxford before being appointed to the Indian Forest Service in 1914. During ten years with the Indian Service he studied and classified vegetation and made considerable plant collections in Sikkim, Bengal and Burma, travelling with his wife, also a botanist. He was attached to the Indian Army during the First World War and served in Egypt and Palestine. On his return to India he officiated as Director of the Botanical Survey then as Superintendent of Royal Botanic Garden Calcutta from 1926, retiring in 1928. In that year he gained a temporary appointment as a botanist in the herbarium at Kew and in 1929 undertook botanical expeditions to Iraq and Persia principally to collect tulip bulbs but returning with 2,500 plant and herbarium specimens. In 1930 Cowan became assistant to the Regius Keeper of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, a post he was to hold for 24 years. Using the Garden’s extensive collections he became an authority on Rhododendron, publishing widely on this and other genera. During the Second World War he was seconded to the Ministry of Supply build up timber production in west of Scotland. Cowan was President Botanical Society of Edinburgh from 1951 to 1953. On retirement in 1954 he took charge of the National Trust for Scotland (NTS) Garden at Inverewe in Wester Ross developing it into a major visitor attraction, and also inaugurated the prestigious NTS garden cruises.
Sources: R. Desmond ‘Dictionary of British and Irish Botanists and Horticulturalists); HR Fletcher and WH Brown ‘The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh 1670-1970’; obituary folder.
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 Surrey 1882; died Westmoreland 1966
Cicely Nichols, the daughter of a Surrey printer, married William Crewdson a barrister and later High Sherriff in 1907. In 1911 they moved to Westmoreland eventually having three daughters. In 1914 William Crewdson went to war, serving in Burma where Cicely joined him in 1915. She returned home in 1916, William in 1919. After the war Cicely’s interests turned more and more to flowering plants, particularly alpines, which she grew in her garden at Helme Lodge, Kendal. In 1931 she had an article published in <i>‘Popular Gardening’</i> and thereafter produced a series of articles in various Alpine Garden Society magazines, including the <i>Journal of The Scottish Rock Garden Club</i>. Her expertise developed through a lifetime correspondence with alpine specialists and she brought back seeds from her travels in Europe. Primulas were a particular speciality but she is best known for her hybrid blue poppy <i>Meconopsis crewdson</i>.
Source: 'Recollections of Cicely Maud Crewdson', unpublished family memoir in RBGE Library.
D.W.

Cullen was the Director of the Stanley Smith (UK) Horticultural Trust.
He trained at the University of Liverpool before coming to Edinburgh where he worked at the University's Department of Botany, at which point he assisted Peter H. Davis with his Flora of Turkey. Cullen then became Assistant Keeper at RBGE and editor of the European Garden Flora.
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