Robert Harold Compton (6 August 1886 in

Tewkesbury Tewkesbury ( ) is a market town and civil parish in the north of Gloucestershire, England. The town grew following the construction of Tewkesbury Abbey in the twelfth century and played a significant role in the Wars of the Roses. It stands at ...

– 11 July 1979 in

Cape Town Cape Town is the legislature, legislative capital city, capital of South Africa. It is the country's oldest city and the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. Cape Town is the country's List of municipalities in South Africa, second-largest ...

) was a South African botanist. The Compton Herbarium at

Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden Kirstenbosch is a botanical garden nestled at the eastern foot of Table Mountain in Cape Town. The garden is one of 10 National Botanical Gardens covering five of South Africa's six different biomes and administered by the South African Natio ...

, which he founded in Cape Town in 1939, was named in his honour.

Career

He attended

Cambridge University The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

from 1905 to 1909, attaining a double first class and distinction and later an M.A. He stayed on at Cambridge from 1911 to 1913 as a Demonstrator in Botany, and joined a field expedition to

New Caledonia New Caledonia ( ; ) is a group of islands in the southwest Pacific Ocean, southwest of Vanuatu and east of Australia. Located from Metropolitan France, it forms a Overseas France#Sui generis collectivity, ''sui generis'' collectivity of t ...

in 1914, collecting extensively and discovering some new genera and species. While at Cambridge, his main publications were in the area of anatomy and morphology of

Gymnosperms The gymnosperms ( ; ) are a group of woody, perennial Seed plant, seed-producing plants, typically lacking the protective outer covering which surrounds the seeds in flowering plants, that include Pinophyta, conifers, cycads, Ginkgo, and gnetoph ...

, Pteridophytes and

Angiosperm Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (). The term angiosperm is derived from the Greek words (; 'container, vessel') and (; 'seed'), meaning that the seeds are enclosed within a fruit ...

seedlings. He enlisted for war service from 1915 to 1918 and arrived in South Africa in March 1919 to become Director of th
National Botanic Gardens
at Kirstenbosch. At the same time he took up the chair of Harold Pearson Professor of Botany at the

University of Cape Town The University of Cape Town (UCT) (, ) is a public university, public research university in Cape Town, South Africa. Established in 1829 as the South African College, it was granted full university status in 1918, making it the oldest univer ...

- Harold Pearson was the first Director of Kirstenbosch. Robert Compton held these posts for the next 34 years. In South Africa his interests were confined to the

taxonomy image:Hierarchical clustering diagram.png, 280px, Generalized scheme of taxonomy Taxonomy is a practice and science concerned with classification or categorization. Typically, there are two parts to it: the development of an underlying scheme o ...

of South African flora. Most of his publications in this field were in the ''Journal of South African Botany'', a journal which he started in 1935 and edited until his retirement. On retirement in 1953 he chose to settle in

Swaziland Eswatini, formally the Kingdom of Eswatini, also known by its former official names Swaziland and the Kingdom of Swaziland, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. It is bordered by South Africa on all sides except the northeast, where ...

and was commissioned by the Swazi Government to undertake a botanical survey of the country. The results first appeared as ''An Annotated Checklist of the Flora of Swaziland'' in Journal of South African Botany Suppl. 11 (1976)

Honours and awards

He was President of the SA Association for the Advancement of Science in 1957, receiving their medal and a grant. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society of SA, an Hon. Fellow of 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 ...

and medallist, twice President of the SA Museums Association, and received an honorary D.Sc. from the University of Cape Town in 1968. He is commemorated in ''Comptonella'' Bak.f., ''Comptonanthus'' B. Nord, and numerous species names. Most of his New Caledonia specimens are with the British Museum, and his vast South African collection (over 35 000 specimens) is spread between the various herbaria in South Africa.

Publications

* with Elsie Garrett Rice * *' *''Our South African flora'' (Cape Times, Cape Town 1930s)

References

*Rourke in ''Forum Botanicum'' 14:57 (1976) *Rycroft in ''Veld & Flora'' 65: 74-75 (1979)

External links

SANBI

{{DEFAULTSORT:Compton, Robert Harold 20th-century South African botanists South African taxonomists Academic staff of the University of Cape Town 1886 births 1979 deaths British emigrants to South Africa Presidents of the Southern Africa Association for the Advancement of Science

Career

Honours and awards

Publications

See also

References

External links