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Gavin Hamilton of Calcutta and the Nicobar Breadfruit

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 July 2015

HENRY J. NOLTIE
HENRY J. NOLTIE*
Affiliation:
Royal Botanic Garden EdinburghH.Noltie@rbge.ac.uk
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Abstract

Two drawings made on Carnicobar Island, possibly early in 1786, by the Calcutta merchant Gavin Hamilton (1754-1820), are discussed. One of them has previously been attributed to Robert Hyde Colebrooke so his later visit to the Nicobar Islands is discussed as is the earlier one of Nicola Fontana. Also discussed is the work of Sir William Jones on the Carnicobar breadfruit (Pandanus leram).

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 25 , Issue 4 , October 2015 , pp. 669 - 683
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 2015 

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References

1 Noltie, H.J., John Hope (1725–1786): Alan G. Morton's Memoir of a Scottish Botanist – a new and revised edition (Edinburgh, 2011), p. 81 Google Scholar.

2 Unpublished, but parts included, in slightly garbled form, in Sokoly, J. and Ohta, A. (2010). India East/West: the age of discovery in late Georgian India as seen through the collections of the Royal Asiatic Society London (Qatar, 2010)Google Scholar.

3 Head, R., Catalogue of Paintings, Drawings, Engravings & Busts in the Collection of the Royal Asiatic Society (London, 1991), p. 91 Google Scholar.

4 RAS 025.014.

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12 The nomenclature and taxonomy is fraught, and it has also been known as P. fascicularis and P. tectorius.

13 G. Hamilton, Asiatic Researches 2 (1790), pp. 337–344.

14 Countess of Sutherland 1450 tons and Gabriel 826 tons in the Port of Calcutta in 1801 – see Mathison, J. and Mason, A.W., A.W. A New Oriental Register & EI Directory for 1802 (London, 1802)Google Scholar.

15 NAS GD/144/8/21 & 16; Gavin paid the fee of three guineas for 1775, but, as was more usual for offspring of professorial colleagues, his attendance in 1777 was ‘gratis’.

16 Noltie, 2011, p. 30.

17 BL APAC L/AG/34/29/4. 1782 no. 37.

18 Scottish National Portrait Gallery PG 198.

19 There was even another Gavin Hamilton in Calcutta at the same time, commander of the ship Sydney Cove, which traded commercial goods with New South Wales where he died in 1799 – BL APAC L/AG/34/29/11.

20 For biographies of William and the elder Gavin see entries in Matthew, H. C. G. & Harrison, B. (eds) Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004), 24, pp. 796, 919 Google Scholar

21 Bell attended Hope's Materia Medica class in 1766 and his botany class in 1769 – NAS GD 253/144/8/1 & 2.

22 For biographies of Benjamin Bell and Dr James Hamilton see entries in Matthew, H.C.G. & Harrison, B. (eds), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004), 4 p. 910 Google Scholar [but note the portrait captioned as of Bell, is actually of Dr James Hamilton], and 24, p. 855.

23 For Gavin's early life see Bell, B., The Life, Character & Writings of Benjamin Bell . . . (Edinburgh, 1868)Google Scholar; and an unpublished journal of 1882 by the younger Benjamin Bell (1810–1883 – Gavin's great nephew) – typescript in Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh GD 16/3/2/1/2.

24 In distinction to Dr James Hamilton ‘Junior’, his unrelated Edinburgh next-door neighbour: for further biographical material and caricatures of the pair see Paton, H., A Series of Original Portraits and Caricature Engravings by the late John Kay . . . with Biographical Sketches . . . (Edinburgh, 1837)Google Scholar.

25 NAS GD 253/144/8/2 & 21; he may also be the James Hamilton who attended Hope's botany lectures in 1764 and 1767 – NAS GD 253/144/8/1.

26 Martin, P., “The painted doctor: portraits of the Edinburgh physician Dr James Hamilton Senior (1749 – 1835) by Sir Henry Raeburn and his contemporaries”, The British Art Journal 10 (2009), pp. 32–42 Google Scholar.

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30 Reproduced in Cotton, 1935.

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35 RA HU/4/112, of 4 x 1795.

36 RA HU/4/90–1. None of his brothers formally married though William had three natural children with an Indian wife.

37 See Matthew, H. C. G. & Harrison, B. (eds), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004), 43, pp. 186–187 Google Scholar. The house, in severely Neo-Classical style, by contrast with the Faux-Mughal Sezincote that Samuel built for his brother Charles, is no longer extant; its grounds now form the National Botanic Garden of Wales.

38 http://www.penmar-tenby.co.uk/tenby.html, accessed 21 viii 2012.

39 Bell, [1882], pp. 26–27.

40 NAS OPR Deaths 685/02 0320 0158.

41 NAS SC70/1/25 Edinburgh Sheriff Court Inventories.

42 RA HU/4/18–9.

43 RA HU/4/90–1.

44 Bell [1882], p. 26.

45 John Bell, pers. comm. of 30 vii 2012, though much was lost in a warehouse fire in Colchester during World War II.

46 Quoted in Archer, 1979, p. 271.

47 For further details, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrian_East_India_Company - accessed 31 vii 2012.

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52 BM Add. MS 33980 143–145.

53 Probably the cycad Encephalartos, the pith of which yields a starchy, bread-like substance. Masson, the great plant collector for Kew, was in South Africa with C. P. Thunberg from 1786 to 1795.

54 Fontana's interest must have started on the Austrian voyage, on which Bolts collected cochineal in Brazil, though the work reported in the pamphlet refers to a later introduction.

55 BL APAC D/154 f. 94.

56 Phillimore, R. H., Historical Records of the Survey of India. Volume 1. 18th Century (Dehra Dun, 1945), pp. 47–50 Google Scholar, with biographical notes on Robert Alexander Kyd l.c., pp. 327–347.

57 BL APAC MSS Eur. F. 21/I & II; see also Kaye, G.R. & Johnston, E.H. India Office Library Catalogue of Manuscripts in European Languages Volume II part II: Minor collections and miscellaneous manuscripts (London, 1937), pp. 567–570 Google Scholar; and Archer, M., British Drawings in the India Office Library. Volume II. Official and Professional Artists (London, 1969), pp. 468–472 Google Scholar.

58 Archer, 1969, plate 106.

59 See also Hardgrave, 2004, p. 29.

60 Archer, 1969.

61 Hardgrave, 2004.

62 BL APAC MSS Eur. F. 95/I ff 83–6.

63 Ibid., ff 87–89

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65 Rheede described four species of Pandanus in volume 2 of Hortus Malabaricus (1679) – plate 6, under the Malayalam name ‘Kaida-taddi’, is the relevant one.

66 BL APAC L/AG/34/29/8. 1793 no. 21.

67 BL APAC L/AG/34/27/15.