Makers of British Botany; a collection of biographies by living botanists

by Unknown

Only towards the end of the seventeenth century had the advance in practice of Medicine in Edinburgh reached a stage which gave urgency to a movement for the improvement in the training of the medical man, and the protection of the public from the attentions of inefficient votaries of the healing art. The foundation of the Royal College of Physicians in 1681 gave expression to the co-operative principle in the control of those who would profess Medicine; the creation of a Botanic Garden for the purpose of the cultivation of medicinal plants was the response in the direction of safeguarding the practitioner against the herbalist, and of giving him the advantage of a correct knowledge of the plants which were the source of the drugs he himself was to compound. Before this time, whilst many practitioners could grow drug-plants for themselves, and did so, the majority were at the mercy of the herbalist.

Two Edinburgh physicians—(Sir) Robert Sibbald and (Sir) Andrew Balfour—conspicuous among their fellows for their activity in promoting the cause of medical education and in the planning of the Royal College of Physicians, were the pioneers of the study of Botany as a science. Determined that the apprentices in Medicine should have adequate opportunity of learning the sources of many of the drugs in use, they acquired a lease of a small area of land in the neighbourhood of Holyrood Palace in which they arranged to cultivate medicinal plants, stocking it from their own gardens and from those of friends. They secured the services of James Sutherland—described as "knowing" in these matters—and placed their small garden under his care, with the obligation that he should instruct the apprentices and lieges in Botany. Sutherland cultivated his plants so well, and the instruction which he gave was so satisfactory, that ere long—no doubt through Sibbald's influence at Court—a portion of the Royal Flower Garden at Holyrood Palace was assigned for the cultivation of medicinal plants, and thither was transferred the collection already made in the hired area. Thus was founded, with the title of Physick Garden, a Royal Botanic Garden in Scotland, and the first Profession of Botany was set up therein by James Sutherland.

Of the earlier years of Sutherland we have no record. His success as a teacher induced the Town Council of Edinburgh—the body in which was vested at the time all the patronage of the University—to institute a Chair of Botany in the University, and to provide for practical teaching in another Botanic Garden belonging to the town. Sutherland was appointed to the Professorship and also to take charge of this new Town Garden, which, it may interest those who at the present day pass through the Waverley Railway Station to know, occupied a portion of the site of that station. Both these gardens were at some distance from the University, and apparently to save the time of the University students, perhaps also to create a teaching garden entirely within the jurisdiction of the College authorities, another portion of ground occupying a part of the Kirk o' Field, notorious as the place of Darnley's murder, was transformed into a herb-garden. Thus within a few years from the beginning of the movement for the providing of adequate facilities to students for learning about plants, three Botanic Gardens were made available.

During Sutherland's tenure of the Professorship teaching was given by him in these different gardens. It would appear, however, that Sutherland was at heart a numismatist, and whilst during the early period of his incumbency of office he had corresponded with many botanical institutions abroad, had introduced to the gardens new species of plants—many of them now established in the flora—and had published in 1683 a Catalogue of the plants in the Physical Garden, in later years his interest was centred in coins and medals. So great was the obsession that the patrons of the University, dissatisfied with his botany, compelled him to resign his Chair in 1706, to which they appointed Charles Preston, but Sutherland retained, until he retired in 1715, charge of the Royal Botanic Garden at Holyrood, of which by Royal Warrant he had been made Keeper with the additional personal recognition of Botanist to the King in Scotland. Thus the increase in number of gardens extended to the Professors, and from 1706 onwards to 1739 there were two rival Botanical Schools in Edinburgh—that of the Royal Garden, and that of the University.

Sutherland's place in relation to the development of scientific Botany in Scotland is that of pioneer in the teaching of systematic Botany from the living plants in relation to Materia Medica, and of first custodian and cultivator of plants for instruction in a public garden. His Catalogue is now a book of some rarity—of great rarity in complete state owing to the number of cancel pages—and its reproduction at the present time would have interest alike scientific and historic. It is the first published record of a collection of cultivated plants in Scotland. It tells us the plants which were recognised as indigenous at its date, and from its record we can by correlation with information otherwise obtainable discover the time of introduction to Scotland of alien plants, and thus obtain a basis for gauging their influence on the native Flora as we know it now.

Charles Preston who stepped into the University Chair of Botany vacated in 1706 by Sutherland, was a medical man, an active correspondent of Sloan, Pettiver, and other scientific men in the south. On his death in 1712, after a short tenure of office, George Preston his brother succeeded him and filled the chair until 1739. Both of the Prestons seem to have been chiefly interested in the Materia Medica side of Botany and their teaching was on the lines of it. They are referred to by their contemporaries as men of botanical knowledge and of critical judgment, and their correspondence indicates that they were in touch with the botanical life of their time. Their work in teaching was always in rivalry with that at the Royal Physick Garden. At first no doubt it was effective and useful owing to Sutherland's neglect of his garden, but when a capable active scientific Professor was placed in charge of this Garden the case for such rivalry and duplication of effort ceased, and it is no surprise therefore to find that when a vacancy occurred in 1739 the University Chair was filled by the appointment of the King's Botanist in Charge of the Royal Physick Garden, who was then Dr Charles Alston. And this combination continues to our own time by mutual consent of the Crown and the University.

Sutherland's retirement in 1715 from the Royal Physick Garden four years before his death, which took place in 1719 when he was over 80 years of age, may have been determined by his incapacity for the duties, but it is probable other influences were effective especially as the office of King's Botanist was a Household Appointment and only during pleasure. Were I merely to tell of incidents in the history of Botany in Edinburgh I would here introduce the story of Dr William Arthur, Sutherland's successor at the Royal Garden. Arthur has no botanical claims, but had influential political friends whose zeal on his behalf he ill requited by becoming one of the leaders in the Jacobite plot to capture the Castle of Edinburgh in 1715. Having failed in the attempt he escaped to Italy, where in 1716 he died from a surfeit of figs! Ignoble fate for a King's Botanist!

A man of real distinction now comes into our botanical history in Charles Alston—a clear observer and experimenter.

Charles Alston, born 24th October, 1685, was the third son of Thomas Alston, M.A. of Edinburgh and M.D. of Caen, one of an old Lanarkshire family settled at Thrinacre Milne and connected with the house of Hamilton. After boyhood at Hamilton, Alston went to the University of Glasgow, but before the period for graduation his father died leaving a widow and large family poorly provided for and young Alston's University career was stopped. Through the intervention of the Duchess of Hamilton Alston was then apprenticed in 1703 to a lawyer with a view to his entering the Estates Office of the Hamilton family. But "anatomy and the shops were more agreeable to him than Style Books or the Parliament House" and his "genius inclined more to Medicine," and in 1709 when the Duchess took him into her service as her "Principal Servant," in which position "he had aboundance of spare time," "he ply'd close the Mathematics and whatever else he thought of use to a student of Medicine, particularly Botany." With this training Alston, through the influence of the Hamilton family, was made King's Botanist, Professor of Botany, and Keeper of the Royal Physick Garden in 1716 after the disappearance of Dr Arthur.

He adopted a wise course on succession. Having put the Garden in such order as he could he hied himself to Leyden in 1718 to study under Boerhaave, and returning thence in August 1719 he graduated in Medicine at the University of Glasgow, became Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, and in June 1720 was able to begin his botanical lectures in the Garden, followed in November by a course on Materia Medica. These courses he carried on until 1739 when he was given the University Chair of Botany and Materia Medica, and the two Botany Schools were thus merged in one. Alston was now colleague of Munro, Rutherford, Sinclair, and other famous men who at this time were increasing the reputation of the University as a Medical School, and he continued to teach Botany and Materia Medica until his death in 1760.