Hugh Falconer - Calcutta

Calcutta

In 1847 Falconer became superintendent of the Calcutta Botanical Garden and professor of botany in the Medical College, Calcutta, near his older brother, Alexander Falconer, a Calcutta merchant. Hugh Falconer served as an advisor to the Indian government and the Agricultural and Horticultural Society of Bengal, the de facto colonial "Department of Agriculture". He prepared an important report on the teak forests of Tenasserim, and this saved them from destruction by reckless felling. Through his recommendation, the cultivation of the cinchona in the Indian empire was introduced for the medicinal use of its bark in the treatment of malaria.

Having to leave India again in 1855 because of ill health, he spent the remainder of his life examining and comparing fossil species in England and the Continent to those he found in India, notably the species of mastodon, elephant, and rhinoceros. He also described some new mammalia from the Purbeck strata of Wessex. Turning to the subject of human origins, he reported on the bone caves of Sicily, Gibraltar, Gower and Brixham.

Falconer was vice-president of the Royal Society 1863-1864. Although suffering from exposure and overwork, Falconer returned hastily from Gibraltar to support Charles Darwin's claim to the Copley Medal in 1864. Falconer succumbed in London, England, on 31 January 1865 from rheumatic disease of the heart and lungs. He is buried in Kensal Green Cemetery, London.

The flower Rhododendron falconeri was named after Falconer by Joseph Dalton Hooker.

Falconer's botanical notes, with 450 coloured drawings of Indian plants, were deposited in the library at Kew Gardens, together with some of the specimens he collected. A marble bust was placed in the rooms of the Royal Society of London, and another in the Asiatic Society of Bengal, Calcutta. A competitive Falconer scholarship of £100 per year was created for graduates in science or medicine of the University of Edinburgh.

The Falconer Museum in Forres exhibits the story of Hugh Falconer as well as stories of local and Scottish interest.

The standard author abbreviation Falc. is used to indicate this individual as the author when citing a botanical name.