A BRIEF MEMOIR OF WILLIAM ROXBURGH, 
AUTHOR OF 
THE FLORA INDICA. 
- — 
PIT 
Prefixed to the last volume of these Annals, I gave a short account of Colonel 
Robert Kyd, the Founder and first Superintendent of the Calcutta Botanic Garden. It 
seems fitting therefore that some account should, in the present volume, be given of 
the Botanist to whom this Garden owes the establishment of its reputation as a centre 
of botanieal work. | 
William Roxburgh was born at Underwood in the parish of Craigie in Aryshire on 
the 3rd June 1751.* His family, although not rich people, managed to give him the 
kind of liberal education which during the two centuries that preceded the introduction of 
school-boards, “standards” and capitation grants, used to be obtainable at almost every 
parochial school in Seotland. From the parish school Roxburgh went to the University 
of Edinburgh and, having attended as many of the medical classes there as were 
then required for a license to practice as a Surgeon's mate, he received (through the 
influence of Dr. Hope, then Professor of Botany at Edinburgh) an appointment in 
that capacity on one of the Honourable East India Company's ships. He accom- 
plished several voyages to India on East Indiamen, and having, during the intervals 
spent at home, completed his medical studies at the University of Edinburgh, 
Roxburgh was offered, and accepted, an appointment on the same Company’s Madras 
Establishment. Roxburgh arrived at Madras during 1776, and he there made the 
acquaintance of Dr. Koenig, who happened at the time to be making one of his 
frequent visits to Madras, Koenig had come out to India about eight years 
previously, and had been working at Natural History (chiefly on its botanical side) 
ever since. Koenig had been a pupil of Linnzus, and was still an active corre- 
spondent of that great master, Coming originally to India at the instance of the 
King of Denmark, Dr. Koenig was attached to the Danish Settlement at Tranquebar. 
The inadequate income which he received there, however, induced: him to accept 
service under the Nawab of Arcot, and it was while in the Nawab’s service that 
he first met Roxburgh. From the special interest taken in him by Dr. Hope, 
there is every probability that Roxburgh had, as a student at Edinburgh, shown 
` enthusiasm for Botanical Science. Koenig had already given practical proof of his 
: i L ` а 
* In Chambers’ Biographies of Eminent Scotchmen, the date is given as 29th June 1759, but that does not agree 
i xh’ { death as given on his tombstone. 
ا‎ ру اوح‎ 8 of Courland, pupil and correspondent of Linneus, travelled in Iceland 
during 1765; went to the Danish Settlement in the Carnatic as Physician and N aturalist = 1768; entered the 
e of the Nawab of Arcot about 1774; was employed by the Madras Board in 1778, and tered the 
а of the Honourable East India Company in 1780; died of dysentery at Jagrenathporum on 26th June 1785. 
servi | 
Ann. Roy. Bor. Garp. CALCUTTA, Vor. V. 
