Collection HDM - Douglas Mackay Henderson Collection

Identity area

Reference code

GB 235 RBG/1/HDM

Title

Douglas Mackay Henderson Collection

Date(s)

  • 1927 - 2007 (Creation)

Level of description

Collection

Extent and medium

Comprehensive collection: 8 boxes of professional & personal correspondence; annotated book; framed photographs of RBGE c.1890s

Context area

Name of creator

(1927-2007)

Biographical history

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

Archival history

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Scope and content

•Henderson’s annotated copy of ‘Lost of British Uredinales’ by M. Wilson and G.R. Bisby, 1954
•Box of papers regarding conferences, foreign trips and reports, 1957-78
•Box of papers regarding conferences and foreign trips, 1980-81
•Box of specific correspondence
•Box of general correspondence
•Box of minutes, meetings and agendas
•Box of papers regarding PhD students, thesis and references
•1 file of miscellaneous correspondence between Henderson and Peter F. Stevens and Dr. Geoff N. Greenhalgh (1972-73)
•Framed photographs of the Royal Botanic Garden in the late 19th century by C. Piazza [Piazzi] Smyth, presented to Henderson on his retirement as Curator of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and Regius Keeper, Royal Botanic Garden. September 1987.
•Box donated by Henderson’s family containing a thesis on ‘Observations on the Comparative Anatomy, Life History and Host Relationships of Sclerotinia Tberosa (Fr.) Fuckel’, H.B. Gjaerum correspondence, notes for a talk on the ‘History of Scottish Cryptographic Botany’, and research notes on Omphalina.
•Box donated by Henderson’s family containing research on John Hutton Balfour’s ‘Battle of Glen Tilt’, a collection of obituaries, folders of Gairloch, Inverewe, Brodie and Roxburgh, research including notes and publication relating to Wm. Roxburgh, folder of West Ross Flora, and annotated checklist of the flora of West Ross.

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Physical storage

  • Shelf: C:4:4
  • Shelf: C:4:5
  • Shelf: C:4:6