James Ramsay Drummond (1851–1921) was a civil servant in India, and amateur botanist. Born in Scotland, he graduated BA from

New College, Oxford New College is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1379 by Bishop William of Wykeham in conjunction with Winchester College as New College's feeder school, New College was one of the first col ...

in 1872. He had a distinguished botanical ancestry; his great-uncle was the botanist James Drummond (1784–1863), while his grandfather was the botanical collector

Thomas Drummond Captain Thomas Drummond (10 October 1797 – 15 April 1840), from Edinburgh was a Scottish British Army officer, civil engineer and senior public official. He used the Drummond light which was employed in the trigonometrical survey of Great Br ...

(1780–1835).

Indian Civil Service

Drummond began a 30-year career in the

Indian Civil Service The Indian Civil Service (ICS), officially known as the Imperial Civil Service, was the higher civil service of the British Empire in India during British Raj, British rule in the period between 1858 and 1947. Its members ruled over more than 3 ...

(ICS) in 1874. Posted to the

Punjab Punjab (; ; also romanised as Panjāb or Panj-Āb) is a geopolitical, cultural, and historical region in South Asia. It is located in the northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent, comprising areas of modern-day eastern Pakistan and no ...

, he served first as Assistant Commissioner, then as District Judge and Deputy Commissioner.

Botany

During his long career in the ICS, Drummond also gained an expert knowledge of the flora of the western Punjab, where he made significant collections of plant specimens. He also collected in the

Simla Shimla, also known as Simla (List of renamed Indian cities and states#Himachal Pradesh, the official name until 1972), is the capital and the largest city of the northern Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. In 1864, Shimla was declared the summe ...

Hills, around Dalhousie and the

Ganges The Ganges ( ; in India: Ganga, ; in Bangladesh: Padma, ). "The Ganges Basin, known in India as the Ganga and in Bangladesh as the Padma, is an international which goes through India, Bangladesh, Nepal and China." is a trans-boundary rive ...

. During his last few months in India, he was appointed curator of the herbarium at the Calcutta Royal Botanic Gardens. On his return to England in 1905, he continued his botanical work at

Kew 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 ("Kew Gardens"), now a World Heritage Site, which includes Kew Palace. Kew is ...

, determining his collections and preparing a flora of the Punjab. However, poor health compromised his efforts and he died having published only a few works, notably a detailed paper on the ''

Agave ''Agave'' (; ; ) is a genus of monocots native to the arid regions of the Americas. The genus is primarily known for its succulent and xerophytic species that typically form large Rosette (botany), rosettes of strong, fleshy leaves. Many plan ...

'' and ''

Furcraea ''Furcraea'' is a genus of succulent plants belonging to the family (biology), family Asparagaceae, native to tropical regions of Mexico, the Caribbean, Central America and northern South America. Some species are also naturalized in parts of Af ...

'' of India co-written by

David Prain Sir David Prain (11 July 1857 – 16 March 1944) was a Scotland, Scottish botanist who worked in India at the Calcutta Botanical Garden and went on to become Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Life Born to David Prain, a saddler, and ...

and published in the ''Land Records and Agriculture, Bengal, 1905''.Anon. (1921). ''Kew Bulletin of Miscellaneous Information'' 1921(3): 123.Hedge, I.C. (1987). Edinburgh's Indian botanical connections and collections. ''Bulletin of the Botanical Survey of India'', 29(1–4): 272–285.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Drummond, James Ramsay 1851 births 1921 deaths 20th-century Scottish botanists 19th-century Scottish botanists British civil servants in British India Alumni of New College, Oxford