The post of Curator of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew has been in use since 1759. [1]
The first Director or Curator of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew was William Aiten (1731–1793), who was in post from 1759 to 1793. He was succeeded by his eldest son William Townsend Aiten (1766–1849) who was Head Gardener or Superintendent from 1793 to 1841. [1]
In 1841 the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew became state owned. The post of Curator became distinct from that of Director. The following is a list of Curators from 1841. [1]
In addition to the Curator of the Botanic Gardens several other curatorships have existed.
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew is a non-departmental public body in the United Kingdom sponsored by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. An internationally important botanical research and education institution, it employs 1,100 staff. Its board of trustees is chaired by Dame Amelia Fawcett.
Kew is a district in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. Its population at the 2011 census was 11,436. Kew is the location of the Royal Botanic Gardens, now a World Heritage Site, which includes Kew Palace. Kew is also the home of important historical documents such as Domesday Book, which is held at The National Archives.
Nathaniel Wolff Wallich was a surgeon and botanist of Danish origin who worked in India, initially in the Danish settlement near Calcutta and later for the Danish East India Company and the British East India Company. He was involved in the early development of the Calcutta Botanical Garden, describing many new plant species and developing a large herbarium collection which was distributed to collections in Europe. Several of the plants that he collected were named after him.
The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE) is a scientific centre for the study of plants, their diversity and conservation, as well as a popular tourist attraction. Founded in 1670 as a physic garden to grow medicinal plants, today it occupies four sites across Scotland—Edinburgh, Dawyck, Logan and Benmore—each with its own specialist collection. The RBGE's living collection consists of more than 13,302 plant species, whilst the herbarium contains in excess of 3 million preserved specimens.
The Victoria Medal of Honour (VMH) is awarded to British horticulturists resident in the United Kingdom whom the Royal Horticultural Society Council considers deserving of special honour by the Society.
Sir David Prain was a Scottish botanist who worked in India at the Calcutta Botanical Garden and went on to become Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.
William Townsend Aiton was an English botanist.
The Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Botanic Gardens is located in Kingstown, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. Established in 1765, it is the oldest botanic garden in the Western Hemisphere. It is one of the most visited sites in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. A historic landmark of major national, regional and global significance, it currently occupies approximately 8 hectares.
William Ramsay McNab was a Scottish physician and botanist.
Hortus Kewensis is a series of works cataloguing the plant species in cultivation at the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
The Veitch Memorial Medal is an international prize awarded annually by the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS).
Kew Gardens is a botanic garden in southwest London that houses the "largest and most diverse botanical and mycological collections in the world". Founded in 1840, from the exotic garden at Kew Park, its living collections include some of the 27,000 taxa curated by Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, while the herbarium, one of the largest in the world, has over 8.5 million preserved plant and fungal specimens. The library contains more than 750,000 volumes, and the illustrations collection contains more than 175,000 prints and drawings of plants. It is one of London's top tourist attractions and is a World Heritage Site.
The Durban Botanic Gardens is situated in the city of Durban, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. It is Durban's oldest public institution and Africa's oldest surviving botanical gardens. The gardens cover an area of 15 hectares in a subtropical climate.
George Gardner was a Scottish biologist mainly interested in botany.
George Nicholson, was an English botanist and horticulturist, amongst 60 awarded the Victoria Medal of Honour by the Royal Horticultural Society in 1897 for their contributions to horticulture. He is noted for having edited "The Illustrated Dictionary of Gardening", produced as an eight-part alphabetical series between 1884 and 1888 with a supplement, and published by L. Upcott Gill of London. It was also published in New York in 1889 by The American Agriculturist in 4 Volumes.
John Scott Lennox Gilmour VMH FLS was a British botanist, curator of the Cambridge University Herbarium, and later director of Cambridge University Botanic Garden and Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge.
This is a list of Directors of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew:
Peter Shaw Green was an English botanist.
John Edward Dinsmore (1862-1951) was a botanist and educator, born in Maine, United States. He is best known for his role as the director of the herbarium of the American Colony, Jerusalem and as the honorary curator at the herbarium of George Edward Post in Beirut, Lebanon.
John Haverfield Sr (1694–1784) was an English gardener.