Career, collections, reports and publications of Dr Francis Buchanan (later Hamilton), 1762–1829: natural history studies in Nepal, Burma (Myanmar), Bangladesh and India. Part 1

SUMMARY

During his 20-year career as a surgeon-naturalist with the British East India Company, Francis Buchanan (later Hamilton, known in botany as Buchanan-Hamilton and in ichthyology as Hamilton-Buchanan) undertook pioneering survey explorations in several diverse regions of the Indian subcontinent. A naturalist at heart, his collections of plants and animals are often the first from such regions, notably Nepal, Burma (Myanmar) and Bangladesh. Buchanan had wide-ranging interests beyond natural history, using his talent for observation and meticulous recording to amass a huge body of information on the lands and peoples he encountered. However, much of this information remains unpublished in his survey reports, journals and other manuscripts, and so his role in the building of knowledge for these areas has been under-appreciated. Although a keen and able botanist, it is ironic that his multitudinous botanical discoveries are particularly poorly known, with the vast majority of his material on this subject languishing unpublished in archival collections. These include his original records and working notes which show the methods he used when dealing with ‘information overload’ and arranging his syntheses ready for publication. Notable is his experimentation with Jussieu's Natural System for classifying his Nepalese plants, and his recognition of biogeographic links of the Nepalese flora with Europe and Japan – both ahead of his fellow countrymen in Britain and India. The life of Francis Buchanan awaits the attention of a biographer who can do justice to his many interests, activities and influences. This is the first of two papers covering his life, providing an empirical baseline for future research and correcting misinformation that abounds in the literature. These papers outline Buchanan’s professional career, concentrating on his activities in the exploration of natural history, and placing them in the wider context of botanical research in India.

Acknowledgements

Gina Douglas, former Librarian and now Honorary Archivist at the Linnean Society of London, first drew our attention to the Buchanan-Hamilton material at the Society. The authors sincerely thank her for this and her continued involvement and assistance with our research. We could not have carried out this study without access to, and help in using, many archival resources and we warmly thank the librarians, archivists and curators at: the Linnean Society of London (especially Lynda Brooks, Janet Ashdown, Elaine Charwat and Ben Sherwood); the Natural History Museum, London (Andrea Hart and Armando Mendez); the Asian and African Studies Reading Room of the British Library, London; and the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew and Edinburgh. We are grateful to John Edmondson for his expert eye confirming the handwriting of James Edward Smith, and David Mabberley for the same for John Joseph Bennett and James Britten. Roderick Barron kindly made available unpublished information from his research on Charles Crawford and assisted with Buchanan-Hamilton's early voyages. We are grateful to Minakshi Menon who has generously shared the fruits of many hours researching in the National Archives of India, and her recent Ph.D. dissertation. We greatly appreciate the help of Isabelle Charmantier, Robert Iliffe, Heleen Plaisier and an anonymous reviewer for their insightful comments on the manuscript, and Nye Hughes for designing the maps. Lastly we would like to acknowledge the support from past and present Ambassadors, both at the Nepalese Embassy in London and the British Embassy in Kathmandu, especially Suresh Chalise FLS, John Tucknott MBE and Andrew Sparkes CMG. Indirect funding was received from the Linnean Society of London by the first author whose attendance at Council meetings gave opportunity to pursue this research.

Notes

1 Charles Allen, The Buddha and the Sahibs (London: John Murray, 2002), pp. 100–01.

2 Ray Desmond, The European Discovery of the Indian Flora (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992).

3 Francis Buchanan changed his name by legal proclamation to Hamilton in 1818, in order to inherit his mother's estate of Bardowie on the death of his elder brother Col. John Hamilton (1758–1818). For the first 56 years of his life, including the whole of his Indian career, he was known only as Buchanan, but in his letters and own publications after 1818 he almost exclusively refers to himself as Hamilton. However, in his successful claim to be recognised as the chief of the Buchanans of Buchanan, he styled himself Francis Hamilton Buchanan (Claim of Dr. Francis Hamilton Buchanan of Spittal: a statement of the claim of the family of Buchanan of Spittal to be considered the chief of the name, as male representative of the family of Buchanan of Buchanan. (Edinburgh: J. Clark & Co., 1826), and the ‘amended statement’ published in 1828). On his marble memorial plaque in the family graveyard at Leny House he is referred to as Francis Buchanan Hamilton, and his only son John called himself Buchanan Hamilton. In botanical, and most zoological circles, he is known as Francis Buchanan-Hamilton (abbreviated to ‘Buch.-Ham.’ in the author citation of scientific plant names), whereas ichthyologists know him as Francis Hamilton-Buchanan. Prain (David Prain, ‘A sketch of the life of Francis Hamilton (once Buchanan) sometime Superintendent of the Honourable Company's Botanic Garden, Calcutta’, Annals of the Royal Botanic Garden Calcutta, 10(2) (1905), i–lxxv (pp. lxxiv–lxxv)) emphatically stated that the correct citation of his name was simply ‘Hamilton’, and condemned zoologists for their ‘erroneous and unnecessary practice’ of using both names, and botanists for following suit but in reverse (Robert Press and Krishna Shrestha, ‘Collections of flowering plants by Francis Buchanan-Hamilton from Nepal, 1802–1803’, Bulletin of the Natural History Museum London (Botany), 30 (2000), 101–30 (p. 102)). In the biographical section of the current work he is referred to by the name he used at the time concerned, and in discussions he is referred to as Buchanan-Hamilton.

4 Matthew H. Edney, Mapping an Empire: the geographical construction of British India, 1765-1843 (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1997), p. 2.

5 Edney (note 4), p. 5.

6 Catalogued by George R. Kaye, India Office Library catalogue of manuscripts in European languages, Vol. 2 Part 2. Minor collections and miscellaneous manuscripts (London: His Majesty's Stationery Office, 1937).

7 Francis Buchanan, A journey from Madras, through the countries of Mysore, Canara, and Malabar, performed under the orders of the Marquis Wellesley, for the express purpose of investigating the state of Agriculture, Arts and Commerce, the Religion, Manners and Custom, the National and Civil History and Antiquities in the Dominions of the Rajah of Mysore and the countries acquired by the Honourable East India Company in the late and former wars with Tippoo Sultan, Vols 1, 2, 3 (London: Bulmer & Co., 1807); Francis Hamilton, An account of the Kingdom of Nepal and of the territories annexed to this dominion by the House of Gorkha (Edinburgh: Constable & Co., 1819).

8 For example: Anonymous, Description of the ruins of Buddha Gaya by Dr. Francis Buchanan-Hamilton, M.R.A.S., extracted from his report of a survey of south Behar. Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society [of Britain and Ireland], 2(1) (1830), 40–51; Anonymous, A geographical, statistical and historical description of the district or zila of Dinajpur in the province or Soubah of Bengal (Calcutta, Asiatic Society, 1833); An account of Assam with some notices concerning the neighbouring territories, first compiled in 1807-1814 by Francis Hamilton, M.D., F.R.S., ed. by Suryya K. Bhuyan (Gauhati: Government of Assam in the Department of Historical and Antiquarian Studies, Narayani Handiqui Historical Institute, 1940); Journal of Francis Buchanan (afterwards Hamilton), kept during his Survey of the Districts of Patna & Gaya in 1811–12, ed. by Victor H. Jackson (Patna: Government of Bijar and Orissa, and Orissa Research Society, 1925); R. Montgomery Martin, The history, antiquities, topography, and statistics of Eastern India; comprising the districts of Behar, Shahabad, Bhagulpoor, Goruckpoor, Dinajepoor, Puraniya, Rungpoor, & Assam, in relation to their geology, mineralogy, botany, agriculture, commerce, manufactures, fine arts, population, religion, education, statistics, &c., surveyed under the orders of the supreme Government, & collated from the original documents at the E.I. House, with the permission of the honourable Court of Directors, by Montgomery Martin … , 3 volumes. (London: Allen & Co., 1938); Charles E.A.W. Oldham, editor, ‘The Journal of Dr. Francis Buchanan (afterwards Buchanan Hamilton from the 1^st November 1812 to the 26^th February 1813, when carrying out his Survey of the District of Shahabad: Edited, with notes and introduction by C.E.A.W. Oldham, C.S.I.’, Journal of the Bihar and Orissa Research Society, 11(3–4) (1925), i–xxi, 201–392, map; Journal of Francis Buchanan, kept during the survey of the district of Shahabad in 1812–13, ed. by Charles E.A.W. Oldham (Patna: Government of Bijar and Orissa, and Orissa Research Society, 1926); Journal of Francis Buchanan, kept during the survey of the district of Bhagalpur in 1810–11, ed. by Charles E.A.W. Oldham (Patna: Government of Bijar and Orissa, and Orissa Research Society, 1930).

9 Francis Hamilton, An account of the fishes found in the River Ganges and its branches, with a volume of plates in Royal Quarto (Edinburgh: Constable & Co., 1822). Ralf Britz is preparing a facsimile edition with colour plates to be published by The Ray Society.

10 Francis Day, ‘On Hamilton Buchanan's original drawings of fish in the library of the Asiatic Society of Bengal’, Proceedings of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1871 (1871), 195–209; Francis Day, ‘The fish and fisheries of Bengal’, in Statistical Account of Bengal, 20, ed. by William W. Hunter (London: Trübner & Co., 1877), 1–120; Eugene W. Gudger, ‘The sources of the material for Hamilton-Buchanan's Fishes of the Ganges, the fate of his collections, drawings and notes, and the use made of his data’, Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, new series, 19 (1923), 121–36; Sunder L. Hora, ‘An Aid to the Study of Hamilton Buchanan`s “Gangetic Fishes”’, Memoirs of the Indian Museum, 9 (1929), 169–92; Sunder L. Hora, ‘Piscium Bengalae Inferioris Delineationes’, Journal and Proceedings of Asiatic Society of Bengal, new series, 27 (1931), 123–39; Tyson R. Roberts, ‘Francis Hamilton and the freshwater stingrays described in his Gangetic fishes (1822)’, Archives of Natural History, 25(2) (1998), 267–80.

11 Francis Hamilton, ‘A commentary on the Hortus Malabaricus, part 1’, Transactions of the Linnean Society of London, 13(2) (1822), 474–560; Francis Hamilton, ‘A commentary on the second part of the Hortus Malabaricus’, Transactions of the Linnean Society of London, 14(2) (1824), 171–312.; Francis Hamilton, ‘A commentary on the third part of the Hortus Malabaricus’, Transactions of the Linnean Society of London, 15(1) (1827), 78–152; Francis Hamilton, ‘A commentary on the fourth part of the Hortus Malabaricus’, Transactions of the Linnean Society of London, 17(2) (1835), 147–252. See also: Marian Fournier, ‘Enterprise in botany: Van Reede and his Hortus Malabaricus – Part I’, Archives of Natural History, 14 (1987), 123–58; Marian Fournier, ‘Enterprise in botany: Van Reede and his Hortus Malabaricus – Part 2’, Archives of Natural History, 14 (1987), 297–338; J. Heniger, Hendrik Adriaan Van Reede Tot Drakenstein (1636–1691) and Hortus Malabaricus – a contribution to the history of Dutch colonial botany (Rotterdam: Boston, A.A. Balkema, 1986); Botany and History of Hortus Malabaricus, ed. by K.S. Manilal (New Delhi, Bombay and Calcutta: Oxford & IBH Publishing Co. (1980); Dan H. Nicholson, C.R. Suresh and K.S. Manilal, An Interpretation of Van Rheede's Hortus Malabaricus, Regnum Vegetabile 119 (Königstein: Koeltz Scientific Books, 1988); K.S. Manilal, Van Rheede's Hortus Malabaricus (Malabar Garden), English Edition, 12 Vols (Thiruvananthapuram: University of Kerala, 2003).

12 Francis Hamilton, ‘Commentary on [the first book of] the Herbarium Amboinense’, Memoirs of the Wernerian Society of Edinburgh, 5 (1826), 307–83; Francis Hamilton, ‘Commentary on the second book of the Herbarium Amboinense’, Memoirs of the Wernerian Society of Edinburgh, 6 (1832), 268–333. See also Eric M. Beekman, The Amboinense Herbal, Volumes 1–6 (New Haven, London: Yale University Press & National Tropical Botanical Garden, 2011), and Elmer D. Merrill, An interpretation of Rumphius's Herbarium Amboinense (Manila: Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Bureau of Science, 1917).

13 David J. Mabberley, ‘Francis Hamilton's commentaries with particular reference to Meliaceae’, Taxon 26 (1977), 523–40.

14 Marika Vicziany, ‘Imperialism, botany, and statistics in early nineteenth-century India: the surveys of Francis Buchanan (1762–1829)’, Modern Asian Studies, 20 (1986), 625–60 (p. 653).

15 Allen (note 1).

16 Desmond (note 2); Allen (note 1).

17 Rajesh Kochhar, ‘Natural history in India during the 18^th and 19^th centuries’, Journal of Bioscience, 38(2) (2013), 1–24, doi 10.1007/s/12038-013-9316-9

18 Carl P. Thunberg, Flora japonica (Lipsiae, 1784). Carl L. Willdenow, Species Plantarum, Edition 5[as 4], Volumes 1–5(1) (Berolini, Nauk, 1797–1810). William Roxburgh's manuscript was posthumously published as the 3-volume Flora indica [ed. 1832] (Serampore: Thacker, 1832); an incomplete, 2-volume version, edited and augmented by William Carey and Nathaniel Wallich, was published as Flora indica [ed. 1820] (Serampore: Mission Press, 1820–1824).

19 See Gareth Nelson, ‘From Candolle to Croizat: comments on the history of biogeography’, Journal of the History of Biology, 11 (1978), 269–305.

20 Peter F. Stevens, The development of biological systematics: Antoine-Laurent de Jussieu, Nature, and the Natural System (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994), pp. 99–109.

21 Antoine-Laurent de Jussieu, Genera plantarum secundum ordines naturalis disposita (Paris: Herissant, 1789).

22 Prain (note 3). For further biographical information see: Isaac H. Burkill, ‘Chapters on the history of botany in India, 1’, Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society, 51 (1953), 846–78; Mabberley (note 13), Vicziany (note 14), William R. Pinch, Peasants and monks in British India (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996); Allen (note 1), Katherine Prior, ‘Hamilton [formerly Buchanan], Francis, of Buchanan (1762–1829)’, in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 24, ed. by H. Colin G. Matthew and Brian Harrison (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 794–95; and Christopher R. Fraser-Jenkins, The First Botanical Collectors in Nepal – the fern collections of Hamilton, Gardner and Wallich – lost herbaria, a lost botanist, lost letters and lost books somewhat rediscovered (Dehra Dun: Bishen Singh Mahendra Pal Singh, 2006).

23 Photographs of these paintings are in the ‘Prain boxes’ in the archives at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, which contain the material and notes used by Prain, including photographs and drawings not included in his un-illustrated memoir.

24 Prain (note 3), p. lxviii; Allen (note 1), p. 10.

25 Francis Buchanan (hereafter FB) to William Roxburgh (hereafter WR), 1 August 1800: Natural History Museum, London, Buchanan Letters [typescript by David Prain] (hereafter NHM-BL), f. 41.

26 Francis Hamilton (hereafter FH) to James Edward Smith (hereafter JES), 18 July 1819: original manuscript, Linnean Society of London archives (hereafter LS), GB-110/JES/COR/2/141. Buchanan's son had a ‘dim recollection’ that his ‘gammy leg’ was the result of a ‘wound in one of his legs which he got in his youth when he was a surgeon on board a man-of-war in some engagement in the West Indies’ (Prain (note 3), p. vii; Allen (note 1), p. 10). However, this injury, if occurred at sea, would have been sustained during one of his voyages on private ships chartered by the Company's Marine Service bound for SE Asia.

27 Bardowie is now in East Dunbartonshire, and not Perthshire as often stated.

28 Henry J. Noltie, John Hope (1725–1786), Alan G. Morton's Memoir of a Scottish Botanist, a new and revised edition (Edinburgh: Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, 2011). Hope gave his lessons in a small, two-story building at the entrance to the Leith Walk garden. This building has been rebuilt at Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, Inverleith, and is now known as the ‘Botanic Cottage’.

29 The (untitled) notes taken by Buchanan (original manuscript bound by Tipu, Sultan of Mysore) survive at RBGE, shelved at classmark F39.

30 Henry J. Noltie, Indian Botanical Drawings 1793–1868 from the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (Edinburgh: Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, 1999).

31 See Science and medicine in the Scottish Enlightenment, ed. by Charles W. J. Withers and Paul Wood (East Linton: Tuckwell Press, 2002).

32 Mathew D. Eddy, ‘The University of Edinburgh natural history class lists 1782–1800’, Archives of Natural History, 30 (2003), 97–117. Minakshi Menon is certain that Francis Buchanan is the ‘Buchanan’ recorded in Walker's class lists. She highlights the fidelity of John Walker's lecture notes, and instructions to his students, with Buchanan's natural history practices on his Mysore and other surveys (Menon to M. Watson, personal communication, 19 August 2013). See also Minakshi Menon, Making useful knowledge: British Naturalists in Colonia India, 1784–1820 (Ph.D. thesis, San Diego: University of California, 2013).

33 Francis Buchanan, Disertatio Medica, Inauguralis, de Febribus Intemittentibus [sic] Medendo (Edinburgh: Balfour & Smellie, 1783).

34 David E. Allen, ‘James Edward Smith and the Natural History Society of Edinburgh’, Journal of the Society for Bibliography of Natural History, 8 (1978), 483–93.

35 FB to JES, 16 November 1783: LS, GB-110/JES/COR/2/118.

36 Dirom G. Crawford, Roll of the Indian Medical Service 1615–1930 (London: W. Thacker & Co., 1930), p. 42.

37 Desmond (note 2), p. 47. Tim F. Robinson, William Roxburgh: the founding father of Indian botany (Chichester: Phillimore, 2008).

38 Departing from Portsmouth (‘Ports’) on 22 March 1785, arriving back to the Downs anchorage off the Kent coast on 17 May 1787. Charles Hardy and Horatio C. Hardy, A Register of Ships employed in the service of the Honourable The United East India Company from the Year 1760 to 1810 (London: Black, Parry and Kingsbury, 1811), p. 108.

39 Departing from Portsmouth on 5 April 1788, arriving back at the Gravesend moorings (‘Moorings’) on 1 September 1789. Hardy and Hardy (note 38), p. 128.

40 Boswell (Crawford (note 36), p. 270) was heading to India where he would end his career as first member of the Madras Medical Board. Buchanan's lecture notes (note 29); Noltie (note 28), pp. 17, 20.

41 Departing from the Downs on 4 April 1791, and arriving back to the Gravesend moorings on 7 June 1792. Hardy and Hardy (note 38), p. 144.

42 Crawford (note 36), p. 42.

43 FB to JES, 14 February 1795: LS, GB-110/JES/COR/2/120.

44 Buchanan's Burma Records; original manuscript, University of Edinburgh Library, Special Collections (hereafter UoE), Dc.1.74.2.

45 Michael Symes, An account of the Embassy to the Kingdom of Ava, sent by the Governor-General of India, in the year 1795 (London: Bulmer and Co., 1800), pp. 267, 346.

46 For example, the ‘gardens were already sown with sweet potatoe, convolvulus batatas, pulse, and Brenjals, solanum melongena’ (Symes, note 45, p. 428), and the use of ‘Croton sebiferum’ (Triadica sebifera), Chinese tallow tree, as a glue for gold leaf (Symes, note 45, p. 395).

47 John Gascoigne, Science in the service of the empire: Joseph Banks, the British state and the uses of science in the age of revolution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998); Harold B. Carter, Sir Joseph Banks, 1743–1820 (London: British Museum (Natural History), 1988).

48 Desmond (note 2), p. 44.

49 FB to JES, 2 October 1796: LS, GB-110/JES/COR/2/[un-numbered, pp. 200–01].

50 M. Symes to J. Banks, 30 January 1798: British Library, London (hereafter BL), BM Add. 33980, f. 131. See also Warren R. Dawson, The Banks Letters: A calendar of the manuscript correspondence of Sir Joseph Banks preserved in the British Museum, the British Museum (Natural History) and other collections in Great Britain (London: British Museum (Natural History), 1958).

51 Summary of letter from J. Banks to M. Symes, 30 January 1798: BL, BM Add. 33980, f. 132.

52 Vicziany (note 14), p. 631. The ownership of botanical materials collected by Company naturalists is varied and was often debated, especially in the case of natural history drawings which may have been prepared by artists engaged by the Company or painters paid for by the naturalist himself. The Company tended to take a proprietorial view on this, as illustrated by the Company's initial claim over all of Roxburgh's Icones, even though the earlier drawings were paid for by Roxburgh himself (Desmond, note 2, p. 50). Buchanan would later argue that although ‘the Company had a certain right in the [Bengal] drawings, in so far as the persons, by whose hands they had been drawn, were paid at the public expense’, he considered their scientific value as chiefly derived from the accuracy derived from his supervision, ‘and all of this value I consider as having been my property, the drawings and describing objects of natural history being in no part of my duty as a statistical surveyor’ (FB to J. Cobb, 1815 [draft]: National Archives of Scotland (hereafter NAS), GD 161/19/2).

53 FB to Trotter, 18 February 1815: BL, APAC F/4/559, item 13709, pp. 13–16.

54 Prain (note 3), p. xl.

55 Francis Hamilton, ‘Some notices concerning the plants of India, and concerning the Sanscritia names of those regions’, Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 10 (1826), 171–87; Kaye (1937); BL, APAC MSS Eur.D.106.

56 James Britten, ‘Buchanan's Avan Plants', Journal of Botany, 40 (1902), 279–82.

57 Buchanan's Catalogue of plants collected in Burma, 1795: UoE, Dc.1.11.

58 Buchanan's general notes on Burma: UoE Dc.1.74.1. Burma journal, 6 June to 27 November 1795 (note 44).

59 Symes (note 45); Britten (note 56); Prain (note 3), p. lii.

60 Symes (note 45), pp. 473–79.

61 FB to JES, 3 March 1802: LS, GB-110/JES/COR/2/123–124.

62 Symes (note 45), p. xiv.

63 John McNeill, Fred R. Barrie, Vincent Demoulin, Werner Greuter, David L. Hawksworth, Patrick S. Herendeen, Sandra Knapp, Karol Marhold, Jose Prado, Willem F. Prud’homme, W.F., Gideon F. Smith, John H. Wiersema and Nicholas J. Turland, International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants (Melbourne Code), Regnum Vegetabile 154 (Königstein: Koeltz Scientific Books, 2012), p. 99.

64 Britten (note 56). Two copies of Buchanan's Ava journal, containing mostly geographical material, are in the British Library (BL MSS.EUR.C.12, 13), and further material (including parts of his original journal) are at the University of Edinburgh (UoE Dc.1.73, Dc.1.74). The drawings of Bauhinia diphylla, Gardenia cornaria and Pontederia dilatata cannot currently be found at the Natural History Museum, London.

65 Prain (note 3), p. lxix, erratum slip; Desmond (note 2), p. 71.

66 Prain, (note 2), p. lxix.

67 Desmond (note 2), p. 71.

68 The Indian and Pacific Correspondence of Sir Joseph Banks, 1768–1820, ed. by Neil Chambers (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011), pp. 452–53). WR to J. Banks, 13 July 1797.

69 FB to JES, 15 November 1797: LS, GB-110/JES/COR/2/121–122.

70 Prain (note 3), p. xvi. Prain's typescript copy of Buchanan's letters to Roxburgh and Wallich which he used for his Sketch (Prain, 1905) is now deposited at the Natural History Museum, London: NHM-BL, ff. 1–141.

71 FB to WR, 21 May 1795: NHM-BL, f. 2.

72 FB to WR, 30 August 1796: NHM-BL, ff. 3–4.

73 See note 69.

74 Hamilton (note 55); see also note 69.

75 Buchanan's Bengal botanical notes ca. 1796–1798. UoE, Dc.1.14.7, Dc.6.97.2, Dc.6.97.11.

76 See note 72.

77 A mohur is a gold coin then equivalent to 15 silver rupees (the Bengal Presidency's Sicca Rupee).

78 See note 49.

79 See note 69.

80 Francis Buchanan [as ‘Buchannan’], ‘An account of Onchidium, a new genus of the class of Vermes, found in Bengal’, Transactions of the Linnean Society of London, 5 (1800), 132–34, pl. 5.

81 Prain (note 3), pp. ix–x, lxix.

82 FB to WR, 10 May 1796: NHM-BL, ff. 15–18.

83 FB to WR, 30 November 1797: NHM-BL, f. 35. Two weeks earlier FB wrote to JES (note 69), that he had ‘just now engaged a young painter whose terms are reasonable and I shall probably very soon give you specimens of his labour’.

84 Hamilton (note 9).

85 FB to WR, 16 October 1798: NHM-BL, ff. 36–37.

86 See note 85.

87 FB to JES, 1 January 1799: LS, GB-110/401D/6.

88 See note 87.

89 Hamilton (note 55).

90 Willem van Schendel, Francis Buchanan in Southeast Bengal (1798): His journey to Chittagong, the Chittagong Hill Tracts, Naokhali and Comilla (Dhaka: University Press, 1992). BL, BM Add. 19286.

91 See note 83. Although Roxburgh left India on sick leave in January 1798, he had obviously already petitioned on Buchanan's behalf beforehand.

92 See note 85. Crommelin married Anne Wilkinson (1775–1827) on 21 May 1798, presumably mid-way through her first pregnancy.

93 See note 83.

94 Hamilton (note 55).

95 Prain (note 3), p. xi.

96 Buchanan's Bengal fish drawings and descriptions: LS, GB-110/401F/2–3.

97 See note 87.

98 Francis Buchanan [as ‘Buchannan’], ‘Description of the Vespertilio plicatus’, Transactions of the Linnean Society of London, 5 (1800), 261–63, pl. 13. [mss LS, GB-110/SP/163].

99 See note 87. Robinson (note 35), p. 172.

100 FB to JES, ca. February 1799: LS, GB-110/JES/COR/2/138–139.

101 Prain (note 3), p. xii.

102 FB to WR, 12 February 1800: NHM-BL, f. 38.

103 Bhairava D. Sanwal, Nepal and the East India Company (London: Asia Publishing House, 1965), p. 215.

104 Arthur Wellesley was on military service in southern India during this period, resigning his civil and military appointments on 24 February 1805. In mid-March he sailed for England on The Trident, and arrived back at the Downs on 10 September 1805 a few months before his elder brother Richard. A third brother, Henry Wellesley (1773–1847, later 1^st Baron Cowley) was also in India 1797–1799 and 1801–1802. Henry served as private secretary to Richard, the Governor-General, advising on diplomatic issues and negotiating treaties with Mysore and Oudh. Henry's visit back to Britain in 1799 was at Richard's request, seemingly to promote the significance and benefit of defeating Tipu Sultan and the annexation of his lands.

105 Lord Edward Clive was the eldest son of Lord Robert Clive (1725–1774), ‘Clive of India’. He was appointed Governor of Madras by the Company in 1797, a post he held until 1803. His wife, the botanically inclined Lady Henrietta Antonia Clive (1758–1830), accompanied him to India, and wrote a diary of her travels in South India with their two daughters, Harriet (Harry) Clive (1754–1839) and Charlotte (Charly) Florentia Clive (1787–1866), 1798–1801, edited and published by Nancy K. Shields, Birds of Passage: Henrietta Clive's Travels in South India 1798–1801 (London: Eland, 2009). It is noteworthy that at the Cape on the outward voyage, Lady Clive met, though did not name, Roxburgh, describing him as ‘a most learned botanist from Bengal who is such a boor that it is more than I can bear’ (Shields, p. 52). In southern India she met not only Buchanan, but the Tranquebar missionaries Benjamin Heyne (1779–1819), Johann Peter Rottler (1749–1836, misspelt as ‘Rothem’ by Shields) and Christoph Samuel John (1747–1813).

106 Benjamin Heyne (1770–1819), the second of the Tranquebar missionaries (after Johann Gerhard König, 1723–1785) to join the Company, initially taking temporary charge from Roxburgh of the Botanic Garden at Samalkot in 1793. In 1799 he was deployed as botanist on Mackenzie's Survey, but he withdrew due to ill health in 1802. Thereafter Heyne was appointed as Company Naturalist and Botanist for the Madras Presidency (Desmond, note 2, p. 41).

107 Prain (note 3), p. xii, E. Clive to WR, October 1799.

108 Buchanan (note 7), EIC to FB, 24th February 1800.

109 Buchanan (note 7).

110 See note 108.

111 Hamilton (note 55).

112 See note 18.

113 FB to WR, 20 May 1800: NHM-BL ff. 39–40.

114 Noltie (note 30), pp. 17, 20.

115 Shields (note 105), p. 155.

116 Shields (note 105), p. 140.

117 FB to WR, 31 January 1801: NHM-BL, ff. 51–53.

118 See note 11.

119 FB to NW, 1 November 1828: NHM-BL, f. 165.

120 Schendel (note 90), p. xiv.

121 Prain (note 3), p. xiv.

122 See note 117.

123 Buchanan (note 7).

124 FB to WR, 15 April 1801: NHM-BL, ff. 56–57.

125 Buchanan (note 7).

126 Hamilton (note 55).

127 Buchanan's Mysore collections: LS. GB-110/402, GB-110/402D/7–100, LINN-SH.

128 Buchanan's Mysore survey notes and catalogue: UoE, Dc.1.14.6, Dc.1.14.8, Dc.1.14.9.

129 See note 61.

130 NAI Public Department 1805 Consultation No. 82, 83. The cost of copying the Journal comprised: Rs 841 A8 for wages for 2 (later 3) Writers between July 1804 and January 1805; Rs 16 A4 for boat hire to bring the Writer's to Barrackpore; Rs 18 for the Painters’ wages; and Rs 4 A8 for binding the books. Transcripts from Minakshi Menon.

131 Hamilton (note 55).

132 Buchanan (note 7). Reginald H. Phillimore, Historical records of the Survey of India, volume 2 (Dehra Dun: Survey of India, 1950), p. 392. Charles Crawford (see Section 6 and note 138) drew the map to illustrate Buchanan-Hamilton's Mysore journey, the original is in the Map Record and Issue Office, Calcutta (now National Archives of India, New Delhi – MIRO 143(1)), and bears his signature.

133 Kaye (note 6), pp. 580–664.

134 [Alexander Hamilton],‘A Journey from Madras, through the Countries of Mysore, Canara and Malabar, performed under the Orders of the Most Noble the Marquis Wellesley, Governor-General of India, for the express purpose of investigating the state of Agriculture, Arts and Commerce; the Religion, Manner and Customs; the History, Natural and Civil; and Antiquities in the Dominions of the Rajah of Mysore, and the Countries acquired by the Honourable East India Company, in the late and former Wars, from Tippu Sultan. By Francis Buchanan, M.D., F.R.S., &c. &c., Cadell & Davis 1807’, The Edinburgh Review or Critical Journal, for October 1808 to January 1809, 13 (No. 25, October 1809), 82–100.

135 See note 11.

136 Captain William Kirkpatrick 1756–1812) had led an earlier diplomatic mission to Nepal in February 1793 to promulgate a treaty of commerce signed in 1792 and establish a Residency in Kathmandu. Kirkpatrick arrived in Kathmandu on 3 March 1793, but antagonism by the Nepalese resulted in the mission leaving just three weeks later, on 24 March, with the treaty in tatters. Dr Adam Freer (1747–1811), also a botany and Materia Medica student of John Hope (1763, 1765), was the Surgeon on the mission. It is most likely that botanical observations in Kirkpatrick's published account (William Kirkpatrick, An account of the Kingdom of Nepaul, being the substance of observations made during a mission to that country, in the year of 1793 (London: Miller, 1811)) were provided by Freer. Freer collected and recorded plants in Aleppo, northern Syria, just prior to his time in India, sending specimens to Hope and Patrick Russell (1726/7–1805) (Janet C.M. Starkey, Examining Editions of The Natural History of Aleppo: Revitalizing Eighteenth-Century Texts (Ph.D. thesis, Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh, 2012), 189). Freer would have known that he was the first foreign botanist to visit Nepal and would have been eager to study the plants. Perhaps Freer was warned against collecting specimens as the Nepalese were ‘extremely jealous’ and his actions might antagonise what was a delicate mission – even the route map was prepared with ‘circumspection’ (Kirkpatrick, p. 5). Freer's original notes have not been traced, and there is no known record of Freer having collected any plant specimens (living or preserved). Lieutenant (later Major) William D. Knox was in command of Kirkpatrick's military escort, giving Knox valuable experience for his role in leading the 1802 mission.

137 See note 61.

138 Charles Crawford signed the 1801 Treaty of Commerce between Nepal and the Company, and was appointed to command the escort to the Knox Embassy to Nepal, 1802–03. Crawford was a skilled surveyor and, from his observations on the Knox mission, he produced a large-scale map of the Kathmandu valley (Figure 5) and two smaller scale maps of the whole country (Buchanan's copies are at LS, GB-110/401M/1–3)

139 See note 61.

140 Sanwal (note 103), p. 97.

141 Hamilton (note 55).

142 Plants cultivated in the Cicar Sarun: LS, GB-110/403/5.

143 FB to WR, 2 March 1802: NHM-BL, f. 63.

144 BL MSS.EUR.E.68.

145 Fraser-Jenkins (note 24).

146 Major James Rennell (1742–1830), now known as the ‘Father of Indian Geography’, was a personal friend of Buchanan and an old India hand. On his retirement Rennell lived in London at 23 Suffolk Street, Charing Cross, and was a major figure in social and scientific scenes for those with Indian connections. He was one of the signatories on Buchanan's citation as a Fellow of the Royal Society and probably helped arrange his accommodation at 33 Suffolk Street during Buchanan's 1806 home leave.

147 See note 61.

148 Letters between Buchanan and James Edward Smith usually took about six months from posting to arrival in hand, in both directions. In favourable sailing conditions the fastest ships could make the journey from Gravesend via the Cape to Madras in four months, but it was more usual to take five or six months for the journey – sometimes much longer (Evan Cotton, East Indiamen, the East India Company's Maritime Service (London: Batchworth Press, 1949), p. 119).

149 Chondrilla drawings: LS, GB-110/401D/1/57, 401D/1/58.

150 Brian H. Hodgson noted in his ‘On the Mammalia of Nepal’, Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1 (1832), 335–49 (pp. 335–37), that ‘the malaria prevails equally and terribly throughout the [Tarai] region, from the middle of March to the middle of October; and whoever has traversed it must, I think, feel that the pestilence is generated by the undue and almost exclusive prevalence of vegetable exhalations in the atmosphere. There is no free ventilation and the forest and the lesser hills (where the malaria is worst) are absolute wildernesses of rank vegetation, so of extravagantly rife and increase that in Oriental phrase, you may almost see and hear it grow! … this pest-house, from which all mankind flee, during 8 months of every 12 … between April and October … [else] they will catch malaria and die. … there are particular tribes of men bred in these or similar places (such as the Thárû of the spot and the Dhângar of South Behâr) who can live there, at least, if not flourish. They die not; neither do they pine visibly; but they are poor specimens of humanity.’

151 FB to WR, 26 March 1802: NHM-BL, f. 66.

152 Fraser-Jenkins (note 24).

153 FB to WR, 11 April 1802: NHM-BL, ff. 69–70.

154 FB to WR, 15 April 1802: NHM-BL, f. 71.

155 For discussions on ‘improvement’ in England see John Gascoigne, Joseph Banks and the English Enlightenment, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003).

156 Hamilton (note 7) and Hamilton (note 55) respectively.

157 FB to WR, 25 April 1802: NHM-BL, ff. 72–73.

158 For further discussion on ‘go-betweens’ at this time see The Brokered World. Go-Betweens and Global Intelligence, 1770-1820, ed. by Simon Schaffer, Lissa Roberts, Kapil Raj and James Delbourgo (Sagamore: Science History Publications, 2009).

159 Vicziany (note 14) was highly critical of Buchanan's motives. For examples of the importance of Buchanan's records see: Bhuyan (note 8); Pinch (note 24); Schendel (note 90).

160 Nepal animal drawings: LS, GB-110/401D.

161 Fraser-Jenkins (note 24).

162 Buchanan's list of living material sent to Roxburgh: LS, GB-110/403/3.

163 George A. Valentia, Voyages and travels to India, Ceylon, the Red Sea, Abyssinia and Egypt, in the years 1802, 1803, 1804, 1805, and 1806, 3 volumes (London: William Miller, 1809), p. 64.

164 William Roxburgh, Hortus Bengalensis (Serampore: Mission Press, 1814), in which 156 species mainly from Chittagong, Mysore, Nepal, and Bengal (but some from the Andaman Islands, Pegu and Malabar) are credited to Buchanan.

165 Prain (note 3), p. xvi, footnote.

166 FB to WR, 21 May 1802: NHM-BL, ff. 74–75.

167 FB to JES, 8 October 1802: LS, GB-110/JES/COR/2/125.

168 See note 167.

169 FB to WR, 22 February 1803: NHM-BL, f. 127.

170 Sanwal (note 103), p. 111.

171 FB to WR, 3 April 1803: NHM-BL, ff. 132–133.

172 But note that BL APAC MSS.EUR.E.68 states that the party crossed the Nepalese border on 27 April 1803.

173 FB to WR, 4 April 1803: NHM-BL, ff. 133–134.

174 Hamilton (see note 55).

175 Buchanan's Nepal Collections: LS, GB-110/399, GB-110/401, GB-110/401D, LINN-SH. David Don, ‘An account of the Lambertian Herbarium’, in A description of the genus Pinus, 2, by Alymer B. Lambert (London: J. White, 1824), appendix; Hortense S. Miller, ‘The herbarium of Aylmer Bourke Lambert. Notes on its acquisition, dispersal and present whereabouts’, Taxon 19 (1970), 489–553.

176 Hamilton (note 7).

177 Copies of Buchanan's records from his stay in Nepal can be found at BL – APAC MSS.EUR.E.68 Some Observations on Nepal, pp. 143 and MSS.EUR.E.69 Register of the Weather, ff. 30. The first is a fair copy (watermark 1802), and apparently there was another copy in existence when Buchanan (then Hamilton) prepared his An account of the Kingdom of Nepal for publication (Hamilton, note 7). Kaye (note 6) commented that apparently the Some Observations on Nepal manuscript was not used as much as the later manuscripts when Buchanan prepared his book. When camped near the Nepal frontier in 1810 and 1814, during the statistical survey of the Bengal Presidency, Buchanan supplemented his knowledge of Nepalese plants through careful inquiries and by sending native collectors into Nepal. The results are included in two other manuscripts in BL, for which Kaye gives a detailed table showing the relationship of each of the manuscripts (Nepal MSS.EUR.E.68; Purnea MSS.EUR.D.80; and Gorakhpur MSS.D.93.3) and the printed work. Buchanan included his Register of the Weather (MSS.EUR.E.68) at the end of his book without change or addition (Hamilton, note 7).

178 Chambers (note 68), pp. 452–53: WR to J. Banks, 13 July 1797.

179 Chambers (note 68), pp. 527–30: J. Banks to WR, 9 Aug 1798.

180 Prain (note 3), p. lxxiv.

181 Desmond (note 2).

182 James Robertson, ‘Parish of Callander, Presbytery of Dunblane, County of Perth, Synod of Perth and Stirling’ [written October 1791], in The statistical account of Scotland, 11, ed. by John Sinclair (Edinburgh: William Creech, 1794), pp. 574–627.

183 Vicziany (note 14), 649.

184 Vicziany (note 14). Hamilton (note 134).

185 See Introduction and note 4.

186 See note 106.

187 Edney (note 4), p. 46.

188 Buchanan's Ava catalogue (note 57); Buchanan's Mysore catalogue (note 128); Buchanan's Nepal catalogue: L, GB-110/401/1; Jussieu (note 21).

189 Jaume Saint-Hilaire noted that it was largely the French systematists who were developing the natural method by perfecting the ideas of natural relationships in plants, refining circumscriptions of natural taxa and clarifying their relationships. Jean Henri Jaume Saint-Hilaire, Exposition des familles narturelles et de la germination des plants, 2 volumes (Paris and Strasbourg, Treuttel and Würtz, 1805), p. lix.

190 For a scholarly discussion of the development of the Natural System see Stevens (note 20), quotes from p. 93.

191 Stevens (note 20), p. 99.

192 Clive A. Stace, Plant taxonomy and biosystematics, Edition 2 (London, Melbourne and Auckland: Edward Arnold, 1989), 25.

193 Robert Brown. Prodromus florae Novae Nollandiae et Insulae Van Diemen (London: Taylor, 1810). William J. Hooker, Flora Scotica (London: Constable, 1821). Stevens (note 20), pp. 99–100.

194 Robert Wight, Illustrations of Indian Botany, volume 1(parts 1–6) (Madras, 1838). Henry J. Noltie, Robert Wight and the botanical drawings of Rungiah and Govindoo, book 1 (Edinburgh: Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, 2007), p. 93.

195 David Don, Prodromus Florae Nepalensis (London: J. Gale, 1825).

196 Buchanan Hope lecture notes (note 29), ff. 149–157. See also Section 2.

197 Jean-Baptiste P. Antoine de Monet, Chevalier de Lamarck (1744–1829), wrote the botanical parts of Charles-Joseph Panckoucke's Encylopédie Méthodique (Paris, 1783–1798), completed by J.L.M. Poiret (1804–1817).

198 See note 18.

199 FB to JES, 17 March 1806: LS, GB-110/JES/COR/2/126.

200 See notes 11 and 12.

201 See note 61.

202 See note 199.

203 Hamilton (note 55).

204 Alexander von Humbolt and Aimé J. A. Bonpland, Essai sur la géographie des plants (Paris, 1805). Alphonse P. de Candolle, Géographie botanique, Dictionnaire des naturelles, XVIII (Strasbourg and Paris, 1820). See Nelson (note 17), 269–305.