PRINCIPAL GARDENERS—THOMAS SOMMERVILLE, 291 
Thomas Sommerville. 
The uncertainty which, as we have seen, surrounds the date of 
Don’s quitting his-post as Principal Gardener attaches also to 
the time of advent of his successor, who was Thomas Sommer- 
ville. Assuming that the appointment was made in 1807, at the 
end of which year we know that Don was again settled in 
Forfar, Dr. Rutherford’s choice had fallen upon a young man of 
some twenty-four years of age, and the presumption is that he 
was a lad trained and working in the Garden.!, But of this and 
of incidents in the life of Thomas Sommerville, we know nothing. 
His tenure of office was short, for he died on 17th March, 1810, 
in his twenty-seventh year,? and was buried in St. Cuthbert’s 
‘Burying Ground.? 
The only references I have met with in literature to Thomas 
Sommerville are these :— 
A writer, under the pseudonym “ Quoth Timon,” of an article 
in the Scots Magazine, LXXI (1809), p. 404, entitled “Some 
Suggestions for the Improvement of the Edinburgh Botanic 
Garden,” says—“ Here we shall, in the first place, express the 
Satisfaction we derive from the admirable style in which the 
Botanic Garden is at present kept, at least in so far as depends 
on the Superintendent‘. We have long been familiar with this 
garden ; but at no period in our observation can we discover a 
more judicious plan to have been pursued in the management of 
the various plants (which indeed their health so strongly indicates), 
or better taste in the general system. In gardening, every likely 
‘This presumption is supported by Prof. Rutherford’s confession of embarrassment 
in the selection of a successor to Sommerville through having no one on the garden 
Staff qualified for the post. See his letter of 19th March, 1810, to Sir Joseph Banks 
On p. 294 of these ‘« Notes.” 
*“*Died on the 17th March, aged 27, Mr. Thomas Sommerville, Superintendent 
of the Royal Botanic Garden, Leith Walk; a young man of great abilities both as 
4 professional gardener and botanist.” —Zdinburgh Courant, March 22, 1810. Also 
Scots Magazine, LXXII (1810), where the name is spelled ‘¢ Somerville” and the place 
of death is given “at his house, on Leith Walk.” 
**Thomas Sommervell from Bottany Gardens on shoulders.” —/Journal of St. 
Cuthbert s Burying Ground, March 21st, 1810. 
ession 
ich belonged to the late Mr. Thos. Somerville, Manager of the Botanic Garden, 
Edinburgh.—To be sold on Saturday, April 28, 1810, at his house, Botanic Garden, 
Leith Walk, y Wm. Bruce, jun.” 
*At this time Sommerville. 
(Notes, R.B.G., Edin., No. XV., March 1908.] 
