HISTORIC NOTICE, vii 
turned to other uses ; and in 1729, George Preston having retired, 
the Town Council appointed, as his successor in the charge of the 
Town’s Garden and as Professor of Botany in the University, 
Charles Alston, who as King’s Botanist had already the charge 
of the Royal Garden and was Regius Professor of Botany. 
Through him, after separation for a quarter of a century, the 
Royal Garden and the Town’s Garden were again combined 
under one Keeper, and the Regius Professorship ‘of Botany and 
the University Professorship were similarly united. They have 
so continued to the present time. 
In 1763, the Royal Garden and the Town’s Garden proving 
too small and otherwise unsatisfactory, John Hope (1725-1786), 
who had succeeded Alston in his offices in 1761, proposed a 
transference of the two to a more congenial site in which they 
could be combined. At first it was intended to secure ground 
to the south of George Watson’s Hospital—the area upon which 
much of the present Royal Infirmary is built—but this not being 
possible, five acres of ground to the north side of Leith Walk, 
below the site now occupied by Haddington Place, were chosen. 
As Hope proposed to transfer the collections in the Royal Garden 
to the new Garden he was able to secure the support of the 
Treasury to his scheme, and the selected ground was leased in 
name of the Barons of Exchequer. At the same time the Town 
Council agreed to contribute £25 annually to the support of the 
Garden, the sum being the amount of rent expected from the 
letting of the old Town’s Garden. The plants from both 
Gardens were transferred to the ground at Leith Walk, and 
from this date there has been only one Botanic Garden in 
Edinburgh. The site thus secured for the Garden proved, 
however, only a temporary one. 
Daniel Rutherford (1749-1819), who in 1786 succeeded 
Hope in his offices, cast about him for a spot in which more 
ground would be available for the extension of the Garden; 
and eventually in 1815 nine and a half acres of the land lying 
to the east of Holyrood Pglace, and forming the ground of 
Belleville or Clockmill, was fixed upon as a site. This selection 
gave rise to controversy which was prolonged, and Rutherford 
died before any arrangements for the transference of the Garden 
had been made. 
Robert Graham (1786-1845), his successor, appointed in 
1820, preferred the more open site of the Inverleith property 
