David Prain

David Prain

Sir David Prain FRS[1] (July 11, 1857 – March 16, 1944) was a Scottish botanist.

Contents

Biography

Prain was born to a saddler in Fettercairn, Kincardineshire, Scotland and studied at the local Parish Schhool and the University of Aberdeen. He taught for two years at Ramsgate College and then returned to Scotland to enter the University of Edinburgh, graduating MD in 1883. He was demonstrator of anatomy at the College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in 1882 and 1883 and at the University of Aberdeen in 1883 and 1884.[2]

He then went to India as a physician/botanist in the Indian Medical Service and after a few years was appointed in 1887 curator of the Calcutta herbarium. In 1898 he was promoted director of the Royal Botanic Garden, Calcutta as well as the Botanical Survey of India and superintendent of Cinchona Cultivation in Bengal, remaining there until 1905. From 1898 to 1905 he also served as professor of botany at the Medical College of Calcutta. In 1905 he became Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.

Publications

  • Bengal Plants (1903)

Honours and awards

In May, 1905 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.[1][3] In 1907 he was awarded an honorary doctorate of philosophy at the Linnaeus' tercentenary in Uppsala, Sweden, and became a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1912. He was also knighted in 1912. He served as president of the Linnean Society from 1916 to 1919 and was awarded the Linnean Medal in 1935.

Private life

In 1887 Prain married Margaret Caird Thomson, daughter of Reverend William Thomson of Belhevie, south of Aberdeen. They had one son, Theodore, who was killed in World War I.

He died at Whyteleaf, Kent on 16 March 1944.

The standard author abbreviation Prain is used to indicate this individual as the author when citing a botanical name.[4]

References

  1. ^ a b Burkill, I. H. (1944). "David Prain. 1857-1944". Obituary Notices of Fellows of the Royal Society 4 (13): 746–726. doi:10.1098/rsbm.1944.0020.  edit
  2. ^ "David Prain (1857–1944)". HuntInstitute. http://huntbot.andrew.cmu.edu/hibd/departments/Archives/Archives-HR/Prain.shtml. Retrieved 27 December 2010. 
  3. ^ "Librar and Archive catalogue". Royal Society. http://www2.royalsociety.org/DServe/dserve.exe?dsqIni=Dserve.ini&dsqApp=Archive&dsqCmd=Show.tcl&dsqDb=Persons&dsqPos=0&dsqSearch=%28Surname%3D%27prain%27%29. Retrieved 27 December 2010. 
  4. ^ "Author Query". International Plant Names Index. http://www.ipni.org/ipni/authorsearchpage.do. 

External links

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