ROXBURGH, WILLIAM, a physician and eminent botanist, was
born at Underwood in the parish of Craigie, on the 29th June, 1759. His
family was not in affluent circumstances, but they nevertheless contrived to
give him a liberal education. On acquiring all the learning which the place
of his nativity afforded, he was sent to Edinburgh to complete his studies,
which were exclusively directed to the medical profession. After attending
for some time the various classes at the university necessary to qualify him
for this pursuit, he received, while yet but seventeen years of age, the
appointment of surgeon’s mate on board of an East Indiaman, and completed
two voyages to the East in that capacity before he had attained his
twenty-first year. An offer having been now made to him of an advantageous
settlement at Madras, he accepted of it, and accordingly established himself
there. Shortly after taking up his residence at Madras, Mr Roxburgh turned
his attention to botany, and particularly to the study of the indigenous
plants, and other vegetable productions of the East, and in this he made
such progress, and acquired so much reputation that he was in a short time
invited by the government of Bengal, to take charge of the Botanical gardens
established there. In this situation he rapidly extended his fame as a
botanist, and introduced to notice, and directed to useful purposes many
previously unknown and neglected vegetable productions of the country. Mr
Roxburgh now also became a member of the Asiatic Society, to whose
Transactions he contributed, from time to time, many valuable papers, and
amongst these one of singular interest on the lacca insect, from which a
colour called lac lake is made, which is largely used as a substitute for
cochineal. This paper, which was written in 1789, excited much attention at
the time, at once from the ability it displayed, and from the circumstance
of its containing some hints which led to a great improvement on the colour
yielded by the lacca insect.
In 1797, Mr Roxburgh paid a visit to his native country,
and returned (having been in the mean time married,) to Bengal, in 1799,
when he resumed his botanical studies with increased ardour and increasing
success. In 1805, he received the gold medal of the Society for the
Promotion of Arts, for a series of highly interesting and valuable
communications on the subject of the productions of the East. He had again,
in this year, returned to England, and was now residing at Chelsea, but in a
very indifferent health; he, however, once more proceeded to Bengal, and
continued in his curatorship of the Botanical Gardens there till 1803, when,
broken down in constitution, he finally returned to his native country. In
this year he received a second gold medal for a communication on the growth
of trees in India, and on the 31st of May, 1814, was presented
with a third, in the presence of a large assembly which he personally
attended, by the duke of Norfolk, who was then president of the Society of
Arts.
Soon after receiving this last honourable testimony of
the high respect in which his talents were held, Mr Roxburgh repaired to
Edinburgh, where he died, on the 10th of April in the following
year, in the 57th year of his age, leaving behind him a
reputation of no ordinary character for ability, and for a laudable ambition
to confer benefits on mankind, by adding to their comforts and conveniences;
which objects he effected to no inconsiderable extent by many original and
ingenious suggestions.