9 
ә 
WILLIAM ROXBURGH. 
Roxburgh in India there were, in the end of the last and the early part of the present 
century, many keen Botanists, chief among whom may be mentioned Anderson, Berry, 
Campbell, Carey, Colebrooke, Fleming, Hardwicke, Kyd, Heyne, Hunter, Buchanan- 
Hamilton, John, Sir W, Jones, Klein, Leschenault, Rottler, Russell, Shuter, and Son- 
nerat. All these men probably received some йшй from the ardour of Koenig, who 
appears to have been in India a sort of avatar of Linneus. The majority of them 
contented themselves, however, with collecting and distributing unnamed specimens of 
Indian plants. Many of their plants sent to Europe were published by Linnzus filius, 
Lamarck, Roth, Retz, Smith, Vahl, A. P. De Candolle and others; while not a few were 
published in India by Roxburgh himself. Rottler did indeed issue some species bearing 
manuscript names, some of which have been kept up. But Roxburgh was the only one 
of the group who attempted to give an account of any considerable number of Indian 
plants in the form of a Flora, and for this reason he has been called tho “Father of 
Indian Botany” and “the Linnzus of India,” 
Colonel Robert Kyd, the Founder and first Superintendent of the Botanic Garden 
° at Calcutta, having died in May 1793, Roxburgh was appointed to succeed him, and 
he took charge of the Calcutta Garden on 29th November of the same year. Colonel 
Kyd had never lived in the garden; in fact there was no house fit for occupation 
by a European within its precincts. Roxburgh, however, determined to live in it, and 
one of the first matters which occupied his attention was the building of a house 
for himself. The spot selected by Roxburgh for his house (the present Superinten- 
dent’s quarters) was on a bold promontory where the river Hooghly makes a bend. 
This site is marked in the old charts and maps as “thanna,” and had at one time 
been occupied by a old fort. On the left bank of the Hooghly, just opposite this 
promontory and on the site of the village still knowa as Mattiabruj (mud-bastion), there 
stood in former days a similar fort; and the two formed a protection against enemies 
and pirates coming up the river. Roxburgh does not appear to have been so expert 
at building as he was at Botany. For the cost of the house erected by him exceeded 
the sum allotted by the Honourable Company by a considerable sum, and the Accountant- 
. General of the period, with the obduracy hereditary to his office, refused to pay the 
excess. 
Roxburgh appears to have arrived at Calcutta with a constitution impaired by hard 
botanical work in the feverish jungles of the Carnatic; for, within four years of his 
' transfer to the Botanic Garden (£e, іп 1797), he was obliged to make a voyage home 
for the re-establishment of his health.* In October 1799 he returned to Calcutta. But so 
soon as 1805 he had again to visit England on account of illness, and during this second 
visit he lived at Chelsea. He returned to Calcutta for the last time apparently about 
1808; but during the hot season of 1813 his health completely broke down, and he 
was compelled to undertake a sea-voyage, which he at first intended should have been 
only to the Cape of Good Hope. His health, however, did not improve sufficiently at 
the Cape to warrant his return to Calcutta, and he therefore extended his voyage to 
St. Helena, and finally to England. Shortly after his arrival at home, he proceeded 
to Edinburgh, where he died at Park Place on the 18th February 1815. He was 
buried in the Greyfriars Churchyard there in the tomb of the Boswells of Auchinlech, 
* According to one account, it was during this visit to Scotland that Roxburgh proceeded to the degree of Doctor 
of Medicine at the University of Edinburgh. 
Axx. Вох. Bor. Garp. CALCUTTA, Vor. V. 
