Career

Collecting localities

Collections

Literature

Biographical data

 

Hunter, (not Sir) William

 

(Source: Flora Malesiana ser. 1, 1: Cyclopaedia of collectors)

(Source: Flora Malesiana ser. 1, 5: Cyclopaedia of collectors, Supplement I)

 

Born: 1755, Montrose, Scotland. Died: Dec. 1812, Batavia, Java.

 

career:

M.A. in 1777, M.D. in 1805, of Marischal College, Aberdeen. A ship’s surgeon in the East, 1781; in the employ of the East India Company, 1783-1812; in 1811, after the conquest of Java by the English, appointed chief of the Medical Service in the same island.1

He is commemorated in the genus Hunteria Roxb. (cf. also sub H. Hunter).

 

Collecting localities:

1802. Malay Peninsula: P. Penang.1 His often mentioned ‘Soongey Clooan’ is the Sungei Keluang at Rihlau or St James.2

 

collections:

Herb. Glasgow, and Herb. Brit. Mus. [BM]; he sent plants to Roxburgh (see there) too.

 

literature:

(1) An autograph of his ‘Outline of a Flora of Prince of Wales’ Island’ (Penang) in Libr. Bot. Dept Brit. Mus. (originally with drawings to the number of 22, to which references were made in the margin of the copy); printed under the title ‘Plants of Prince of Wales Island’ (Journ. Str. Br. Roy. As. Soc. no 53, 1909, p. 49-127).

Other publications on Gambir (in Transact. Linn. Soc. 1807) and ‘Remarks on the species of Pepper and on its cultivation at Prince of Wales Island’ (Asiat. Research. vol. 9, p. 383).

On his MSS cf. J. Britten in Journ. Bot. 54, 1916, p. 143-144.

(2) cf. Burkill in Gard. Bull. Str. Settlem. 4, 1927, p. 146.

 

biographical data:

Biogr. Index Britten & Boulger in Journ. Bot. 27, 1889, p. 151 and 2nd ed. by Rendle, 1931; Buckland, Dict. Ind. Biogr., 1906; Journ. Str. Br. Roy, As. Soc. no 53, 1909, p. 49; Dict. Nat. Biogr. 28, p. 305; Crawford, Hist. Ind. Med. Serv. 1, 1914, p. 207; Burkill in Gard. Bull. Str. Settlem. 4, 1927, nos 4-5; Backer, Verkl. Woordenb., 1936.