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

Born: 1737, Lissanoure, Antrim, Ireland. Died: 1806, Chiswick, Mdx., England.

career:

Was educated in the University of Dublin, M.A. 1759; subsequently to London, entering the Society of the Middle Temple, but remaining only a short period, making arrangements for a tour of Europe, preparing for his career of a public life. In 1765 envoy extra-ordinary to Russia; on his return entering parlia. ment and becoming chief secretary for Ireland (1769-72); 1775 Governor of the Caribbee Islands; 1780 Governor of Madras, returning to England in 1786; in 1792 created Earl in the Irish peerage; Embassy to China 1792-94;¹ Baron in 1796; Governor of the Cape of Good Hope in 1796. In 1799 he returned to England, suffering much from gout, and determined to retire from public life.

Collecting localities:

Cf. sub Sir G.L. Staunton.

collections:

He is cited to have collected Hypolythrum latifolium L.C.Rich. in Sunda Strait (cf. Bot. Tidsskr. 24, 1901, p. 37). It seems possible that the plant was in fact collected by Staunton, or one of the gardeners.

Mr Hemsley informed Bretschneider (cf. Hist, Bot. Disc. China 1898, p. 162) that some of the sheets belonging to this collection (of the Embassy to China, 1792-94), in the British Museum, bear Staunton’ name, some that of MacArtney; he did not think that they represent different collections.

literature:

(1) See ‘A Journal of an Embassy from the King of Great Britain to the Emperor of China in the year 1792, 1793, and 1794’ by the Earl of MacArtney [in J. Barrow, Some account of the public life and a selection from the unpublished writings of the Earl of MacArtney 2, 1807, p. 161-517, (519)-(531)].

biographical data:

J. Barrow, Some Account of the Public Life and a Selection from the Unpublished Writings of the Earl of MacArtney (London, 2 vols, 1807, with portr.).

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