Nathaniel Wallich
Encyclopedia
Nathaniel Wallich was a surgeon
and botanist of Danish origin who worked in India initially in the Danish settlement near Calcutta and later joined the East India Company
. He was involved in the development of the botanical garden at Calcutta and he described many new species of plant and made a large herbarium collection which was worked on by other botanists and several of the plants that he collected have been named after him.
in 1786 as Nathan ben Wulff. His father Wulff ben Wallich (or Wolff Wallich) was a merchant who settled in Copenhagen
and came from the Holsatian
town Altona
near Hamburg
late in the 18th century. He later adopted the name Nathan Wallich, and as an adult Nathaniel. Wallich obtained the diploma of the Royal Academy of Surgeons at Copenhagen and at the end of the year was appointed as Surgeon in the Danish
settlement at Serampore
, then known as Frederiksnagore in Bengal
. He also studied botany with Martin Vahl
. He sailed for India
in April 1807 via the African cape and arrived at Serampore the following November.
The Danish alliance with Napoleonic France
resulted in many Danish
colonies being seized by the British
, including the outpost at Frederiksnagore
. The British East India Company
took over Frederiksnagore
and Wallich was imprisoned. He was released on parole in 1809 on the merit of his scholarship. From August 1814, Wallich became an Assistant Surgeon in the East India Company's service and resigned as Superintendent of the Indian Museum
in December 1814. Wallich was later appointed assistant to William Roxburgh
, the East India Company's botanist in Calcutta. By 1813 he took great interest in the flora and natural vegetation of India, and undertook expeditions to Nepal
, West Hindustan
, and lower Burma. He became a member of the Asiatic Society
. Wallich proposed the forming of a museum in a letter dated 2 February 1814 to the Council of the Asiatic Society.
Wallich offered his services to the Society and some items from his own collections for the Museum. The Society heartily supported the proposal and resolved to set up a museum and to appoint Wallich to be the Honorary Curator and then Superintendent of the Oriental Museum of the Asiatic Society. Dr. Nathaniel Wallich took charge of the Museum on 1 June 1814. The Museum thus inaugurated, grew rapidly under the guidance of its founder Wallich and private collectors. Most of these private contributors were Europeans except for one Indian, Babu Ramkamal Sen
, initially a collector and later the first Indian Secretary to the Asiatic Society. Wallich was also temporarily appointed Superintendent of East India Company's Botanical Garden at Calcutta and later permanently joined the Garden in 1817 and served there till 1846 when he retired from the service. Ill health forced Wallich to spend the years 1811-1813 in the more temperate climate of Mauritius
, whence he continued his studies.
In 1822, at the behest of his friend Sir Stamford Raffles he travelled to Singapore
to design the botanical garden, but returned to Calcutta the following year for reasons unknown.
Nathaniel Wallich prepared a catalogue of more than 20,000 specimens which is known informally as the "Wallich Catalog".The specimens in the catalogue were either collected by Wallich himself or from other collectors around the same period, including collections by Roxburgh, Gomez, Griffith and Wight. The collector of each specimen is clearly cited in the catalogue itself. Today, Wallich's personal collection is housed at the Kew Herbarium as a separate collection, known as the Wallich Collection. In addition to the specimens in the Wallich Collection, Wallich also distributed duplicates of his specimens to herbaria, of note are the duplicates he sent to Sir Joseph Banks, which are in the Kew general collection, outside of the Wallich Collection. He also published two important books, Tentamen Floræ Nepalensis Illustratæ (vols I-II, 1824–26) and Plantæ Asiaticæ Rariores (vols I-III, 1830–32), and went on numerous expeditions. One of Wallich's greatest contributions to the field of plant exploration was the assistance he regularly offered to the many plant hunters who stopped in Calcutta on their way to the Himalaya.
The three volumes of Plantae Asiaticae rariores made use of artists employed by the Calcutta Botanic Garden: 146 drawings by Gorachand, 109 by Vishnupersaud and one work by Rungiah (the artist employed by Robert Wight
). The rest of the plates were by John Clark and three by William Griffith
. Two hundred and fifty copies of the work were made of which 40 were purchased by the East India Company.
In 1835 Wallich, William Griffith and John McClelland were sent to evaluate the prospects of growing tea in Assam. During this mission of the Tea Committee, relations between Wallich and Griffith took a turn. Wallich accused Griffith of hiding some of the plants that he had collected. Griffith complained that "I repeat what I have often said, that it is utterly impossible to pull well with such a man, and that he is a compound of weakness, prejudice and vanity." Wallich was disliked intensely. This found its way into McClelland's writings in the Calcutta Journal of Natural History and Griffith reworked Wallich's setup at the Botanic Garden.
Wallich left Calcutta in April 1842 for the Cape and subsequently left for Europe. During his absence William Griffith was nominated to manage the Garden and during the time taken for him to reach Calcutta from Malacca, Joachim Otto Voigt (1795–1843) took temporary charge.
Wallich was responsible for packing many of the specimens that came through the gardens on the way to England, and over the years he developed some innovative methods, including packing seeds in brown sugar. The sugar preserved and protected the seeds very well and, Wallich had one of the best records for keeping plant material alive for shipping prior to the development of the Wardian case
.
Wallich also took an interest in Indian art and history. He was the first director of the Oriental Museum of the Asiatic Society which is today the Indian Museum. He employed Indian artists and expected them to sign the art work, although this was not done.
During 1837 and 1838, Nathaniel Wallich served as Professor of Botany in Calcutta Medical College. He was an honorary doctor at the University of Copenhagen
and member of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters
.
He retired to London
in 1847, and remained there until his death seven years later; he was buried in Kensal Green
Cemetery. Wallich had a son, George Charles Wallich
(1815–1899), and a daughter, Hannah Sarah. Part of his herbarium collections are held at Kew, and known as the 'Wallich Herbarium', is the largest separate herbarium. Another part of the collection is the Central National Herbarium of the Botanical Survey of India in Calcutta and there in all about 20,500 specimens.
Surgeon
In medicine, a surgeon is a specialist in surgery. Surgery is a broad category of invasive medical treatment that involves the cutting of a body, whether human or animal, for a specific reason such as the removal of diseased tissue or to repair a tear or breakage...
and botanist of Danish origin who worked in India initially in the Danish settlement near Calcutta and later joined the East India Company
East India Company
The East India Company was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China...
. He was involved in the development of the botanical garden at Calcutta and he described many new species of plant and made a large herbarium collection which was worked on by other botanists and several of the plants that he collected have been named after him.
Biography
Nathaniel Wallich was born in CopenhagenCopenhagen
Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...
in 1786 as Nathan ben Wulff. His father Wulff ben Wallich (or Wolff Wallich) was a merchant who settled in Copenhagen
Copenhagen
Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...
and came from the Holsatian
Holstein
Holstein is the region between the rivers Elbe and Eider. It is part of Schleswig-Holstein, the northernmost state of Germany....
town Altona
Altona, Hamburg
Altona is the westernmost urban borough of the German city state of Hamburg, on the right bank of the Elbe river. From 1640 to 1864 Altona was under the administration of the Danish monarchy. Altona was an independent city until 1937...
near Hamburg
Hamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
late in the 18th century. He later adopted the name Nathan Wallich, and as an adult Nathaniel. Wallich obtained the diploma of the Royal Academy of Surgeons at Copenhagen and at the end of the year was appointed as Surgeon in the Danish
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
settlement at Serampore
Serampore
Serampore is a city and a municipality in Hooghly district in the Indian state of West Bengal. It is a part of the area covered by Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority. It is a pre-colonial town on the right bank of the Hoogli River...
, then known as Frederiksnagore in Bengal
Bengal
Bengal is a historical and geographical region in the northeast region of the Indian Subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal. Today, it is mainly divided between the sovereign land of People's Republic of Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal, although some regions of the previous...
. He also studied botany with Martin Vahl
Martin Vahl
Martin Henrichsen Vahl was a Danish-Norwegian botanist and zoologist.He studied botany in Copenhagen and in Uppsala under Carolus Linnaeus. He edited Flora Danica fasc. XVI-XXI , Symbolæ Botanicæ I-III , Eclogæ Americanæ I-IV and Enumeratio Plantarum I-II...
. He sailed for India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
in April 1807 via the African cape and arrived at Serampore the following November.
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
resulted in many Danish
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
colonies being seized by the British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, including the outpost at Frederiksnagore
Serampore
Serampore is a city and a municipality in Hooghly district in the Indian state of West Bengal. It is a part of the area covered by Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority. It is a pre-colonial town on the right bank of the Hoogli River...
. The British East India Company
British East India Company
The East India Company was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China...
took over Frederiksnagore
Serampore
Serampore is a city and a municipality in Hooghly district in the Indian state of West Bengal. It is a part of the area covered by Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority. It is a pre-colonial town on the right bank of the Hoogli River...
and Wallich was imprisoned. He was released on parole in 1809 on the merit of his scholarship. From August 1814, Wallich became an Assistant Surgeon in the East India Company's service and resigned as Superintendent of the Indian Museum
Indian Museum
The Indian Museum is the largest museum in India and has rare collections of antiques, armour and ornaments, fossils, skeletons, mummies, and Mughal paintings...
in December 1814. Wallich was later appointed assistant to William Roxburgh
William Roxburgh
William Roxburgh was a Scottish surgeon and botanist. He has been called the Father of Indian Botany.-Early life:Roxburgh was born at Underwood in the parish of Craigie, Ayrshire. He studied medicine in Edinburgh...
, the East India Company's botanist in Calcutta. By 1813 he took great interest in the flora and natural vegetation of India, and undertook expeditions to Nepal
Nepal
Nepal , officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked sovereign state located in South Asia. It is located in the Himalayas and bordered to the north by the People's Republic of China, and to the south, east, and west by the Republic of India...
, West Hindustan
Hindustan
Hindustan or Indostan, literal translation "Land of River Sindhu ", is one of the popular names of South Asia. It can also mean "the land of the Hindus"...
, and lower Burma. He became a member of the Asiatic Society
Asiatic Society
The Asiatic Society was founded by Sir William Jones on January 15, 1784 in a meeting presided over by Sir Robert Chambers, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court at the Fort William in Calcutta, then capital of the British Raj, to enhance and further the cause of Oriental research. At the time of...
. Wallich proposed the forming of a museum in a letter dated 2 February 1814 to the Council of the Asiatic Society.
Wallich offered his services to the Society and some items from his own collections for the Museum. The Society heartily supported the proposal and resolved to set up a museum and to appoint Wallich to be the Honorary Curator and then Superintendent of the Oriental Museum of the Asiatic Society. Dr. Nathaniel Wallich took charge of the Museum on 1 June 1814. The Museum thus inaugurated, grew rapidly under the guidance of its founder Wallich and private collectors. Most of these private contributors were Europeans except for one Indian, Babu Ramkamal Sen
Ramkamal Sen
Ramkamal Sen was the Diwan of the Treasury, Treasurer of the Bank of Bengal and Secretary of the Asiatic Society, Calcutta.-Childhood:Born at Gariffa village on the banks of the Hooghly River, he proceeded to Kolkata in 1791 for his education...
, initially a collector and later the first Indian Secretary to the Asiatic Society. Wallich was also temporarily appointed Superintendent of East India Company's Botanical Garden at Calcutta and later permanently joined the Garden in 1817 and served there till 1846 when he retired from the service. Ill health forced Wallich to spend the years 1811-1813 in the more temperate climate of Mauritius
Mauritius
Mauritius , officially the Republic of Mauritius is an island nation off the southeast coast of the African continent in the southwest Indian Ocean, about east of Madagascar...
, whence he continued his studies.
In 1822, at the behest of his friend Sir Stamford Raffles he travelled to Singapore
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
to design the botanical garden, but returned to Calcutta the following year for reasons unknown.
Nathaniel Wallich prepared a catalogue of more than 20,000 specimens which is known informally as the "Wallich Catalog".The specimens in the catalogue were either collected by Wallich himself or from other collectors around the same period, including collections by Roxburgh, Gomez, Griffith and Wight. The collector of each specimen is clearly cited in the catalogue itself. Today, Wallich's personal collection is housed at the Kew Herbarium as a separate collection, known as the Wallich Collection. In addition to the specimens in the Wallich Collection, Wallich also distributed duplicates of his specimens to herbaria, of note are the duplicates he sent to Sir Joseph Banks, which are in the Kew general collection, outside of the Wallich Collection. He also published two important books, Tentamen Floræ Nepalensis Illustratæ (vols I-II, 1824–26) and Plantæ Asiaticæ Rariores (vols I-III, 1830–32), and went on numerous expeditions. One of Wallich's greatest contributions to the field of plant exploration was the assistance he regularly offered to the many plant hunters who stopped in Calcutta on their way to the Himalaya.
The three volumes of Plantae Asiaticae rariores made use of artists employed by the Calcutta Botanic Garden: 146 drawings by Gorachand, 109 by Vishnupersaud and one work by Rungiah (the artist employed by Robert Wight
Robert Wight
Robert Wight was a Scottish surgeon and botanist who spent 30 years in India. He studied botany in Edinburgh under John Hope. He was the director of the Botanic Garden in Madras. He made use of local artists to make illustrations of the plants around him...
). The rest of the plates were by John Clark and three by William Griffith
William Griffith (botanist)
William Griffith was a British doctor, naturalist, and botanist.Griffith's botanical publications are from India and Burma. After a brief stay in Madras, he was assigned as a Civil Surgeon to Tenasserim, Burma, where he studied local plants and made collecting trips to the Barak River valley in...
. Two hundred and fifty copies of the work were made of which 40 were purchased by the East India Company.
In 1835 Wallich, William Griffith and John McClelland were sent to evaluate the prospects of growing tea in Assam. During this mission of the Tea Committee, relations between Wallich and Griffith took a turn. Wallich accused Griffith of hiding some of the plants that he had collected. Griffith complained that "I repeat what I have often said, that it is utterly impossible to pull well with such a man, and that he is a compound of weakness, prejudice and vanity." Wallich was disliked intensely. This found its way into McClelland's writings in the Calcutta Journal of Natural History and Griffith reworked Wallich's setup at the Botanic Garden.
Wallich left Calcutta in April 1842 for the Cape and subsequently left for Europe. During his absence William Griffith was nominated to manage the Garden and during the time taken for him to reach Calcutta from Malacca, Joachim Otto Voigt (1795–1843) took temporary charge.
Wallich was responsible for packing many of the specimens that came through the gardens on the way to England, and over the years he developed some innovative methods, including packing seeds in brown sugar. The sugar preserved and protected the seeds very well and, Wallich had one of the best records for keeping plant material alive for shipping prior to the development of the Wardian case
Wardian case
The Wardian case, was an early type of sealed protective container for plants, which found great use in the 19th Century in protecting foreign plants imported to Europe from overseas, the great majority of which had previously died from exposure during long sea journeys, frustrating the many...
.
Wallich also took an interest in Indian art and history. He was the first director of the Oriental Museum of the Asiatic Society which is today the Indian Museum. He employed Indian artists and expected them to sign the art work, although this was not done.
During 1837 and 1838, Nathaniel Wallich served as Professor of Botany in Calcutta Medical College. He was an honorary doctor at the University of Copenhagen
University of Copenhagen
The University of Copenhagen is the oldest and largest university and research institution in Denmark. Founded in 1479, it has more than 37,000 students, the majority of whom are female , and more than 7,000 employees. The university has several campuses located in and around Copenhagen, with the...
and member of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters
Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters
Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters is a Danish non-governmental science Academy, founded 13 November 1742 by permission of the King Christian VI, as a historical Collegium Antiquitatum...
.
He retired to London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
in 1847, and remained there until his death seven years later; he was buried in Kensal Green
Kensal Green
Kensal Green, also referred to as Kensal Rise is an area of London, England. It is located on the southern edge of the London Borough of Brent and borders the City of Westminster to the East and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea to the South....
Cemetery. Wallich had a son, George Charles Wallich
George Charles Wallich
George Charles Wallich was a British medical doctor and marine biologist. He was the son of the Danish naturalist Nathaniel Wallich. He won the Linnean Medal.- External links :*http://www.aim25.ac.uk/cgi-bin/search2?coll_id=2932&inst_id=20...
(1815–1899), and a daughter, Hannah Sarah. Part of his herbarium collections are held at Kew, and known as the 'Wallich Herbarium', is the largest separate herbarium. Another part of the collection is the Central National Herbarium of the Botanical Survey of India in Calcutta and there in all about 20,500 specimens.
Species named for Nathaniel Wallich
- Catreus wallichii (Cheer Pheasant or Wallich's Pheasant)
- Clerodendrum wallichii
- Convolvulus wallichianus
- Debregeasia wallichiana
- Diospyros wallichii
- Dombeya wallichiiDombeya wallichiiDombeya wallichii is a flowering shrub of the genus Dombeya, sometimes called the Pink-ball.Native to Madagascar.The flowers are fragrant, smelling like coconut....
- Dryopteris wallichiana
- Geranium wallichianum
- Hoya wallichii
- Ligusticum wallichiiLigusticum wallichiiLigusticum wallichii is a flowering plant in the carrot family best known for its use in traditional Chinese medicine where it is considered one of the 50 fundamental herbs. It is known by the common names chuānxiōng and Szechuan lovage....
(Szechuan lovage) - Meconopsis wallichii
- Memecylon wallichiiMemecylon wallichiiMemecylon wallichii is a species of plant in the Melastomataceae family. It is endemic to Malaysia. It is threatened by habitat loss.-Source:* Chua, L.S.L. 1998. . Downloaded on 22 August 2007....
- Nageia wallichianaNageia wallichianaNageia wallichiana is a species of conifer in the Podocarpaceae family.It is tree 10-54 m high, found in Brunei, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam.-References:...
- Pinus wallichiana (Blue Pine or Bhutan Pine)
- Rotala wallichii
- Rubus wallichii
- Schima wallichii
- Schefflera wallichiana
- Taxus wallichianaTaxus wallichianaTaxus wallichiana is a species of yew, native to the Himalaya from Afghanistan east to western Yunnan in southwestern China, at altitudes from 2,000–3,500 m.-Growth:...
(Himalayan Yew) - Ulmus wallichiana (Himalayan Elm or Kashmir Elm)
- Valeriana wallichii