(Source: Flora Malesiana ser. 1, 1: Cyclopaedia of collectors)

(Source: Flora Malesiana ser. 1, 1: Cyclopaedia of collectors, Addenda & Corrigenda)

(Source: Flora Malesiana ser. 1, 5: Cyclopaedia of collectors, Supplement I)

(Source: Flora Malesiana ser. 1, 8: Cyclopaedia of collectors, Supplement II)

Born: 1770. Died: 1839, Perth, Scotland.

career:

Major in the British Army, Resident of Malacca (1803-18), later the first Resident of Singapore (1819).

He employed a native or Chinese artist¹ to delineate the plants of the Peninsula, and submitted the drawings to Jack and Wallich (see those). 

When Farquhar was at Penang waiting for a boat to Calcutta, Raffles arrived on the last day of 1818 with orders from Calcutta and one for Farquhar telling him to serve under Raffles (Burkill in litt. 25.8.1955).

Myristica farquhariana and other species were named after him by Wallich.

Collecting localities:

He climbed Mt Ophir in Johore, Malay Peninsula, about 1818, and collected a little on it (cf. Burkill in Gard. Bull. SIT. Settlem. 4, 1927, nos 4-5).

collections:

His plants were described by Wallich; probably sent to him together with the drawings of plants. Plates in Libr. Roy. As. Soc.

His collection of plates in the Libr. R. As. Soc. of Great Britain and Ireland, consists of 2 books, comprising respectively 55 and 42 plates (pres. 1827). I.H. Burkill made an inventory of the Latin names of the depicted plants.²

In 1810 Farquhar sent a plant from Malacca to Roxburgh.³

literature:

(1) Burkill’s statements, respectively in Journ. Str. Br. Roy. As. Soc. no 73, 1916, p. 153, and in Gard. Bull. 4, 1927, p. 121, do not agree!

I.H. Burkill: ‘William Farquhar’s drawings of Malayan plants’ (Gard. Bull. Str. Settlem. 12, 1949, p. 404-407).

(2) In Gard. Bull. Sing. 12, 1949, p. 404-407; ibid. 14, 1955, p. 530-533.

(3) See Roxburgh, Hort. Beng. 1814, p. 1.

biographical data:

3rd Suppl. Biogr. Index Britten & Boulger in Journ. Bot. 46, 1908, p. 5; Backer, Verkl. Woordenb., 1936; Portr. in Str. Times Annual for 1971, p. 60.

photo gallery: