William Roxburgh

William Roxburgh

He was born on 3 June 1751[2] on the Underwood estate near Craigie in Ayrshire and christened on 29 June 1751 at the nearby church at Symington.^[3]

His father may have worked in the Underwood estate or he may have been the illegitimate son of a well-connected family.^[4] His early education was at Underwood parish school perhaps also with some time at Symington parish school, and he probably also had private tutoring in Latin, as demonstrated by his letters and some descriptions.

He studied medicine at

He joined the Madras Medical Service as an Assistant Surgeon on 28 May 1776 and was promoted to the rank of Surgeon in 1780. He received a second doctorate (also MD) on 12 January 1790 from Marischal College in Aberdeen.^[7][8]

Career

Roxburgh began work in the

He had sent many illustrations to Sir Joseph Banks, who in May 1795, started publishing Plants of the coast of Coromandel in 3 volumes with over 300 drawings and descriptions of plants. The last part was published in March 1820.^[12] The names of the local artists who produced the botanical illustrations were not recorded.

He meticulously collected vast amounts of meteorological data for years, and is considered as a pioneer in the collection of tropical meteorological data, to an extent unrivalled elsewhere until the 1820s.

In 1813, he returned to Scotland due to poor health.^[14] To recuperate from his illness before continuing his voyage to Scotland, he stopped at Saint Helena island on 7 June 1813 and left on 1 March 1814. Despite his poor health he produced an annotated list of Saint Helena plants during his stay. This list formed the only accessible printed account of the flora until 1875. This was published as an appendix to Beatson's Tracts 1816.^[15] He appears to have lived in, or close to, his original Edinburgh lodgings, then known as 4 Park Place or Street on the Meadows. He died there on 18 February 1815 and was buried nearby in Greyfriars Kirkyard. He was outlived by his third wife Mary.^[16][17]

Recognition

In 1791 he was erected a Fellow of the

In 1802, Roxburgh was elected as a member of the American Philosophical Society held in Philadelphia.^[19]

In 1805, he received the gold medal of the Society for the Promotion of Arts for a series of highly interesting and valuable communications on the subject of the productions of the East and a second gold medal in 1803 for a communication on the growth of trees in India. On 31 May 1814, he was presented, in the presence of a large assembly, a third gold medal by the Duke of Norfolk (then, the president of the Society of Arts).

Soon after receiving this last honourable testimony of high respect, Roxburgh returned to Edinburgh, where he later died. He was created Keeper of the

Posthumous honours

In 1820, at the Mission Press in Serampore, William Carey posthumously edited and published vol. 1 of Dr. William Roxburgh's Flora Indica; or Descriptions of Indian Plants.^[20] In 1824, Carey edited and published vol. 2 of Roxburgh's Flora Indica, including extensive remarks and contributions by Dr. Nathaniel Wallich. Carey and Wallich continued to work in the field of botany and in 1834, both Carey and Wallich contributed botanical specimens to the Royal Society for Agriculture and Botany's Winter Show in Ghent, Belgium.

Rosa roxburghii was initially named Rosa microphylla by Dr. Roxburgh in 1820, but because René Louiche Desfontaines had previously applied the name 'microphylla' to an unrelated European species in 1798. The name was then changed in 1823 by (Austrian botanist) Leopold Trattinnick.^[21]

Authority abbreviation

Notes