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

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

Born: 1836, Great Ayton, Yorkshire, England. Died: Nov. 14, 1869, Rangoon, Burma.

career:

In 1858 graduated in medicine at Edinburgh; in 1859 in Br. Indian Medical Service in Bengal, in 1860 transferred to China and from Dec. 1862-68 magistrate in charge of the jail at Malacca; since 1868 Superintendent of jail at Rangoon, where he was murdered during a mutiny of the prisoners.¹

He is commemorated in several plant names.

Collecting localities:

Dec. 1862-early part of ‘68. Malay Peninsula: Malacca, Penang and Singapore;² on Mt Ophir (1864³ and Aug. 1867); passing through Singapore (Sept. 1867).⁴

collections:

Herb. Kew [K]: 2585 nos, including those from China and Japan, c. 1600 species of Malayan plants, and large collections of Malacca lichens; Herb. Calcutta [CAL]: 1326 Malacca species (purch. 1872/73). Duplicates in Herb. Leiden [L]: more than 700 Malacca specim. (pres. 1872); Herb. Brit. Mus [BM]: 323 plants from Malaya (purch. 1871); Herb. Berl. [B]: 465 nos from Malacca and Further India; Herb. Decand. (Geneva [G]); Herb. Cambridge (with Herb. Babington [CGE]). Also dupl. from Malaya in Herb. Vienna [W], and in Leningrad [LE].

He rarely recorded the places from where the specimens came.² His notes on plants and drawings are preserved at Kew. At Kew his field nos were partially replaced by herb. numbers.

To my knowledge only one paper was based on his collection;⁵ many descriptions of plants of his are dispersed in literature.⁶

He presented fruits and seeds from Malacca to Hort. Bog. in 1868.

literature:

(1) cf. Extracts of some letters in Transact. Bot. Soc. Edinburgh 11, 1873, p. 345-351.

(2) cf. Ridley in Journ. Str. Br. Roy. As. Soc. no 25, 1894, p. 167.

(3) cf. Account in Singapore Free Press of March 10, 1864.

(4) cf. Burkill in Gard. Bull. Str. Settlem. 4, 1927, p. 190.

(5) D. Oliver: ‘Descriptions of the new genera of plants in the Malayan herbarium of the late Dr A.C. Maingay’ (Transact. Linn. Soc. 28, 1873, p. 515-518).

(6) See e.g. Hook. Icon. Plant., since 1886.

biographical data:

Transact. Bot. Soc. Edinb. 11, 1873, p. 36-40; Bretschneider, Hist. Bot. Discov. China, 1898, p. 679; Ann. Naturh. Mus. Wien 44, 1930, p. 441, note 2; Backer, Verkl. Woordenb., 1936.

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