Hugh Francis Clarke Cleghorn

A catalogue of the botanical drawings made for H.F.C. Cleghorn (1820–1895)

This is a catalogue of the Cleghorn Collection of original botanical drawings held in the library of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, but excludes the many hundreds of drawings copied for him from printed illustrations. The 934 drawings, made between 1845 and 1867, originally formed part of Cleghorn’s library, but because of its divison following his death in 1895, these came to RBGE from two different sources. The largest number came in 1940 with the donation of the Cleghorn Forest Library by what was then the Royal Scottish Museum; a smaller number came from the library of the University of Edinburgh at an unknown date, but almost certainly prior to the Museum material.

Subsequent to their entering the RBGE collection the drawings were incorporated into the taxonomic sequence of the Garden’s large and heterogeneous Illustrations Collection. In 1997–8, together with all other original artworks, they were removed by H.J. Noltie and reassembled into their original collections. The Cleghorn material proved heterogeneous in itself, and subsequent research to understand the different elements took many years. The results were published in The Cleghorn Collection: South Indian Botanical Drawings 1845 to 1860 (RBGE, 2016) and The Botanical and Forestry Library of Hugh Cleghorn of Stravithie (Edinburgh Bibliographical Society, 2018), with further biographical details in Indian Forester, Scottish Laird: the Botanical Lives of Hugh Cleghorn of Stravithie (RBGE, 2016).

To show the diversity of the collection, eleven different elements were given alphanumeric codes as follows:

• CN 1–464. Drawings made between 1845 and 1847, almost one per day, by an un-named ‘Marathi’ artist probably of the gudigar caste, during the period Cleghorn was stationed in Shimoga – then in the Kingdom of Mysore, now in the Indian State of Karnataka.
• CAH 1–148. Drawings made between 1852 and 1859 (one from 1867) of plants growing in the garden of the Madras Agri-Horticultural Society (now Chennai, Tamil Nadu). Cleghorn acted as Secretary to the Society at various points; some of the drawings were commissioned by him, others probably by the gardener Andrew Thomas Jaffrey. Some of the drawings are by Govindoo, others by students of the Madras School of Art, including Mooroogasen Moodeliar.
• CMG 1–76. Drawings, mainly of exotic plants, made between 1852 and 1860 in a variety of gardens both private (in Madras and the Nilgiri Hills) and Governmental (Ootacamund and the Lal Bagh, Bangalore), by Govindoo and students of the Madras School of Art, including Mooroogasen Moodeliar.
• CNS 1–162. Drawings of native Indian species made between 1853 and 1865, some from Cleghorn’s early Madras days while involved with the Agri-Horticultural Society Garden and the Medical College; others after his appointment as Conservator of Forests in 1856, during forest tours (especially in the Western Ghats) on which he seems to have taken Govindoo. Some are by Madras School of Art students and a few by amateur British artists.
• CY 1–23. Drawings of yams (Dioscorea spp.) made in May 1854, probably by Govindoo. Most of the specimens were supplied by Sir Walter Elliot, possibly in connection with the 1855 Madras Exhibition that took place the following year.
• CYNS 1–11. Drawings of yam roots in gey ink on native paper, possibly connected with Sir Walter Elliot, possibly made in connection with the 1855 Madras Exhibition.
• CMER 1–9. Drawings of roots exhibited at the Madras Exhibition of 1855.
• CC 1–5. Ink drawings of ferns collected in 1853 by Robert C. Cole in the Shevaroy Hills (Tamil Nadu).
• CW 1–17. Ink drawings of largely medicinal plants collected by Edward J. Waring in Burma (Megui in 1853) and Travancore (now Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala) in 1855.
• CP 1–13. Drawings made c 1857 by Mooroogasen, William Cullen and Charles Drew, connected with Cleghorn’s Memorandum upon the Pauchontee, or Indian Gutta Tree of the Western Coast (Fort St George Press, Madras, 1858); most of them published therein.
• CMisc 1–7. Miscellaneous drawings from the Cleghorn Collection.

It is possible to query the data base of this information which is searchable taxonomically by ‘Current name’, ‘Original name’ and ‘Family’. A printout of the whole collection by drawing number is also possible.