Francis Buchanan-Hamilton

Dr Francis Buchanan FRS FRSE FLS FAS FSA DL (15 February 1762 – 15 June 1829), later known as Francis Hamilton but often referred to as Francis Buchanan-Hamilton was a Scottish physician who made significant contributions as a geographer, zoologist, and botanist while living in India.

The standard botanical author abbreviation Buch.-Ham. is applied to plants and animals he described, though today the form "Hamilton, 1822" is more usually seen in ichthyology and is preferred by Fishbase.

Francis Buchanan was born at Bardowie, Callander, Perthshire where Elizabeth, his mother, lived in the estate of Branziet; his father Thomas, a physician, came in Spittal and claimed the chiefdom of the name of Buchanan and owned Leny estate matriculated in 1774 and received an MA in 1779. As he had three older brothers, he had to earn a living from a profession and Buchanan studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh graduating MD in 1783. His thesis was on febris intermittens (malaria). He then served on Merchant Navy ships to Asia, he served in the Bengal Medical Service from 1794 to 1815. He also studied botany under John Hope in Edinburgh. Hope was among the first in Britain to teach the Linnean system of botanical nomenclature although he knew of several others having been trained under Jussieu.

Buchanan's early career was on board ships plying between England and Asia. The first few years were spent as Surgeon aboard the Duke of Montrose sailing between Bombay and China under Captain Alexander Gray and later Captain Joseph Dorin. He then served on the Phoenix along the Coromandel Coast again under Captain Gray. In 1794 he served on the Rose, sailing from Portsmouth to Calcutta and reaching Calcutta in September, he joined the Medical Service of the Bengal Presidency. Buchanan's training was ideal as a Surgeon naturalist for a political mission to the Kingdom of Ava in Burma under Captain Symes (as replacement for the previously appointed Surgeon Peter Cochrane). The Ava mission set sail on the Sea Horse and would pass the Andaman Islands, Pegu and Ava before returning to Calcutta.

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