An important archive of Indian botanical watercolours, drawings, letters and notes of and...

An important archive of Indian botanical watercolours, drawings, letters and notes of and regarding botanist Hugh F.C. Cleghorn (1820-1895), Major General Alexander Cunningham (1814-1893)and Colonel Heber Drury (1819-1905), India, circa 1840-1860 (18 works)

Provenance: English private collection acquired in 2017

Comprising:

Cleghorn material

1. A folder inscribed Notices of Common Indian Trees No. 1, possibly in the hand of Francis Cunningham with whom Cleghorn had healings over the re-establishment of the Lal Bagh garden in Bangalore

Manuscripts of Dr. Charles Drew (d. 1857)

2. An ink sketch of the trunk and inflorescence Baccaurea and sheet of related notes a more developed version is at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh

3. Notes on the Dammer tree

4. Notes on another, unidentified tree, probably but not certainly in Drews hand

Manuscripts of Cleghorn

5. A diary page dated 13 August 1857, made in Calicut during his first tour as Conservator of Forests for Madras. It appears to be about the role of Khadars (a tribal group) in forest management.

6. Two sheets with parts of the manuscript of the paper on the uses of coconut published by Cleghorn in 1861in the Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal.

7. Two watercolours of Acacia melanoxylon, one showing the efforts of nature to survive the process of ringing (the bark forming a mass of callus tissue after it has been damaged), the other the effect of attack by the parasitic plant Loranthus memecylifolius. These are very amateur and could even be by Celghorn himself, the pencil writing is his scrawl used for rough notes. They are interesting as recording his connection with the Australian Plantations in the Nilgris, on which he wrote reports as Madras Conservator. These were set up by Campbell to grow Australian species of Eucalyptus and Acacia as quick growing timber for building projects, and fuel for the growing settlements at Ooty and Coonoor. They were beside the Wellington Barracks near Coonoor.

8. Three copy plates from Celghorns collection copied from two European publications, the rest of which are all at Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, comprising Antequtilea laureola, t.161 and Lodhra crategoides, t.110 from Jaquemont, Voyages dans LInde par Victor Jacquemont, 1840-41; and Eucalyptus robusta, plate 7 of J.O. Westwood, Arcana Entomologica, 1845.

9. A proof plate from a work by R.H. Beddone, Cleghors successor as Madras Conservator

10. A lithograph by Dumphy (probably after a drawing by Govindoo) of Diospyros assimilis from Beddomes 1866/67 Forest Report.

11. A fine monochrome watercolour sketch of Portulaca quadrifida, possibly by one of the Madras School of Art pupils.

12. Notes on 12 species of native trees signed by Major Alexander Cunningham. These are in the hand of a clerk and must have been copied either for Cleghorn or perhaps Cunninghams Bangalore-based brother. They must have been made when Cunningham was travelling in Central India in the 1850s.

13. A fine drawing of Carnarium strictum (the black dammer tree), labelled Anagoondy Pass, Cochin.

Material which appears to have been commissioned by Colonel Heber Drury

14. A watercolour of the male inflorescence of Pandanus odoratissimus, hard to say if in an Indian or European hand

15. A watercolour of a fruiting (female) branch of Pisonia aculeata, certainly by an Indian hand.

16. A pencil sketch of infloresence of Cypripedium (now Paphiopedilum) druryi, signed M.W.

17. A pencil sketch of whole plant of P. druryi, annotated 4000 ft. discovered on the Travancore Mts by Col. H. Drury 1866, probably by an Indian hand.

18. A watercolour of a Habenaria species (labelled Satyrium from Travancore Hills 3000 ft., certainly by an Indian hand not unlike Govindoos style, however Drury used his own artists.

The cataloguing of the above was compiled from notes provided by the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh.

Of the Indian botanical collections at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, the watercolours, writings and drawings of Hugh F.C. Cleghorn (1820-1895) are by far the most important (H. Noltie, Indian Botanical Drawings, Edinburgh, 1999, p. 31). Cleghorn was the third generation of his family to be involved in India, his grandfather playing a major role in acquiring Ceylon for the British in the late 18^th century. Educated in Scotland he went to India in 1842 as part of the Medical Service. He travelled extensively, studying and drawing plants and developed a keen interest in the problems of deforestation. He was appointed Professor of Botany in 1852 at Madras Medical College, publishing the book Forests and Gardens of South India in 1861. His work on the prevention of deforestation resulted in his appointment as Inspector General of Forests. In 1868, having inherited his family home in Stravithie, Cleghorn returned to Scotland and gave lectures on botany in Glasgow. The Cleghorn Memorial Library at the Royal Museum of Scotland was started in 1888 containing much of his works on forestry.

Further reading: H.J. Noltie, Indian Botanical Drawings 1793-1868 from the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh, 1999; H.J. Noltie, The Cleghorn Collection : south Indian botanical drawings, 1845 to 1860 , Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh, 2016