Thomas Drummond (1793 — March 1835), was a Scottish botanical collector.
Life
Thomas Drummond was the younger brother of the botanist
James Drummond. He was born in Scotland, and during the early part of his life was at Don's nursery,
Forfar
Forfar ( sco, Farfar, gd, Baile Fharfair) is the county town of Angus, Scotland and the administrative centre for Angus Council, with a new multi-million pound office complex located on the outskirts of the town. As of 2021, the town has a p ...
. He first became known to botanists by his distributed sets of mosses, ‘Musci Scotici,’ and afterwards was attached as assistant-naturalist to
Dr. Richardson in
Sir John Franklin
Sir John Franklin (16 April 1786 – 11 June 1847) was a British Royal Navy officer and Arctic explorer. After serving in wars against Napoleonic France and the United States, he led two expeditions into the Canadian Arctic and through t ...
's second land expedition.
He accordingly sailed from
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a popul ...
on 16 February 1825 and reached
New York on the 15th of the following month. The expedition moved westward by the
Hudson River
The Hudson River is a river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York and flows southward through the Hudson Valley to the New York Harbor between N ...
and lakes
Ontario
Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...
and
Winnipeg
Winnipeg () is the capital and largest city of the province of Manitoba in Canada. It is centred on the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine rivers, near the longitudinal centre of North America. , Winnipeg had a city population of 749,6 ...
to the
Mackenzie River. Drummond quit the main party at
Cumberland House
Cumberland House was a mansion on the south side of Pall Mall in London, England. It was built in the 1760s by Matthew Brettingham for Prince Edward, Duke of York and Albany and was originally called York House. The Duke of York died in 1767 ...
to explore the
Rocky Mountains
The Rocky Mountains, also known as the Rockies, are a major mountain range and the largest mountain system in North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch in straight-line distance from the northernmost part of western Canada, to New Mexico in ...
.
On 3 June 1827 Drummond met
David Douglas at Carlton House as Douglas was venturing overland from
Fort Vancouver
Fort Vancouver was a 19th century fur trading post that was the headquarters of the Hudson's Bay Company's Columbia Department, located in the Pacific Northwest. Named for Captain George Vancouver, the fort was located on the northern bank of th ...
toward
York Factory, Manitoba
York Factory was a settlement and Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) factory (trading post) located on the southwestern shore of Hudson Bay in northeastern Manitoba, Canada, at the mouth of the Hayes River, approximately south-southeast of Churchill. Yo ...
on his return trip to London, collecting for the
Royal Horticultural Society
The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS), founded in 1804 as the Horticultural Society of London, is the UK's leading gardening charity.
The RHS promotes horticulture through its five gardens at Wisley (Surrey), Hyde Hall (Essex), Harlow Carr (Nort ...
.
In the spring of 1831 Drummond journeyed on foot by the
Alleghany Mountains
The Allegheny Mountain Range (; also spelled Alleghany or Allegany), informally the Alleghenies, is part of the vast Appalachian Mountain Range of the Eastern United States and Canada and posed a significant barrier to land travel in less develo ...
, reaching
St. Louis
St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...
in July, where he fell ill. In consequence of this delay he was unable to join the fur traders on their expedition to the north. He therefore was compelled to confine his explorations to
and thereabouts. Hence he made a botanical tour in
Texas
Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...
; at
Velasco an attack of
cholera
Cholera is an infection of the small intestine by some strains of the bacterium ''Vibrio cholerae''. Symptoms may range from none, to mild, to severe. The classic symptom is large amounts of watery diarrhea that lasts a few days. Vomiting and ...
prostrated him, but on recovering he continued his labours. Drummond collected along the Brazos, Colorado and Guadalupe Rivers, spending almost two years collecting plants and birds in Texas. His plant specimens from Texas were widely distributed in Europe and stimulated later botanical exploration. (Geiser, 1949) He embarked finally for
Havana
Havana (; Spanish: ''La Habana'' ) is the capital and largest city of Cuba. The heart of the La Habana Province, Havana is the country's main port and commercial center. on 9 February 1835 and died at that port early in March. The plants sent home by Drummond were described by
Sir William Hooker in his ''Flora Boreali-Americana'', his ''Journal of Botany'', and ''Companion to the Botanical Magazine''.
He and his brother, James are honoured in 1855, in the Australian plant genus of ''
Drummondita'' (in the
Rutaceae
The Rutaceae is a family, commonly known as the rue[RUTACEAE](_blank)
in BoDD – Botanical Derm ...
family).
References
Other sources
*
Nisbet, Jack. ''The Collector: David Douglas and the Natural History of the Northwest'' (2009) Sasquatch Books.
*Harvey, Athelstan George. ''Douglas Of The Fir: A Biography Of David Douglas Botanist'' (1947) Harvard University Press.
*Lindsay, Ann and Syd House. "The Tree Collector: The Life and Explorations of David Douglas" (1999,2005) Aurum Press Ltd.
*Geiser, Samuel Wood. "Naturalists of the Frontier" (1949) Southern Methodist University Press
External links
Royal Botanical Gardens, Edinburgh
Further reading
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Drummond, Thomas
1835 deaths
19th-century British botanists
Scottish botanists
19th-century Scottish scientists
Plant collectors
Scottish explorers
1793 births