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Frank Ludlow graduated from Cambridge in 1908 with a BA in natural sciences and on leaving university was appointed vice principal at Sind College, Karachi. During the First World War he served in Mesopotamia after which he went to Poona as Inspector of European Schools. In 1923 he opened a new school at Gyantse, Tibet. Although this closed in 1926 he remained on good terms with the Tibetan government and was almost uniquely allowed access to that country for a number of years. In 1927 he retired to Srinigar in Kashmir and from this date started travelling extensively, collecting birds and plants for the British Museum of Natural History. In 1928 he met George Sherriff in Kashgar in Chinese Turkestan and with their shared interests in ornithology, travel and plants they began a lifelong friendship which led to a series of major expeditions to the Eastern Himalayas and South East Tibet. During the 1930s they trekked through the Tian Shan mountains, Sikkim, Bhutan and Tibet, collecting thousands of plant specimens, though on these journeys Ludlow was more concerned with the collection of birds on which he wrote extensively. During the Second World War Ludlow was in charge of British Mission in Lhasa from 1942 to 1943 and was Joint Commissioner in Ladakh from 1940-42 and again from 1943-46. He continued collecting in 1946 setting off for South East Tibet again with Sherriff. Their sixth and final great expedition together was collecting alpine and temperate flora in Bhutan in 1949. They both returned to Britain in 1950 where Ludlow spent his remaining years working on their collections in the British Museum.
Sources: R. Desmond ‘Dictionary of British and Irish Botanists and Horticulturalists; obituary folder; H.R. Fletcher ‘A Quest for Flowers’.
D.W.

George Sherriff attended the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich and fought in the First World War in France in 1918, where he was gassed. In 1919 he was sent to India and served on the north-west frontier. In 1927 he was appointed British vice-consul in Kashgar, Chinese Turkestan and while there travelled widely. In 1929 he met Frank Ludlow and their shared interests in ornithology, travel and plants started a lifelong friendship. During the 1930s they went on a series of plant and bird collecting expeditions working eastward along the main Himalayan ranges. In 1933, for example, they travelled to Tibet, Nang-kartse, Gyantse and back to India making 500 gatherings of plants and seeds; their collections included 69 species of rhododendron, 15 new to science. Sherriff resumed his military service during the Second World War, first in Assam and later in Sikkim and in 1943 he succeeded Frank Ludlow in charge of British Mission in Lhasa. After the war he continued collecting in south east Tibet, again with Ludlow. In 1949 both retired from India and went a final expedition to Bhutan to gather alpine and temperate flora. George Sherriff funded virtually all his expeditions himself and, as well as collecting, took thousands of photographs. He was one of first plant collectors to send specimens in crates back by air to Kew, Edinburgh and Wisley and his best plant introductions were rhododendrons, primulas, and peonies. On retirement Sherriff bought an estate near Kirriemuir in Angus where he grew many Himalayan plants with great success. In his later years he served in the Home Guard, on the county council and as session clerk of his local church.

Sources: Dictionary of National Biography; R. Desmond ‘Dictionary of British and Irish Botanists and Horticulturalists; obituary folder; H.R. Fletcher ‘A Quest for Flowers’.
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.

Bill Steel was born around 1910, probably in Lanarkshire where his family were farmers. At some point the family ceased farming and moved to Lesmahagow, Lanarkshire.
In the mid to late 1920s Bill studied agriculture and horticulture at several locations including the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh and the West of Scotland Agricultural College.
Theer is some evidence that during the 1940s Bill ran a business from Musselburgh / Edinburgh involved in the supply of plants.
Bill married Eliza (Ella) Macleod Paton in the late 1940s and they eventually moved to Busby in Renfrewshire and ran a market garden and nursery. Around 1960, due to ill health, Bill gave this business up and he and his family moved to Longniddry in East Lothian. He maintained his interest in gardening and established a fine garden there, continuing to keep notes and diaries until close to his death - he died of leukaemia on 5th January 1970, aged around 61. Ella continued to tend their garden until her death in 2002.
The above, and further biographical information is from a biography written by Bill's grandson, Chris Ostler, who acquired Bill's papers on the death of his mother who was Bill's adopted daughter - the papers pertaining to agriculture / horticulture were donated to RBGE by Chris in February 2015.