John Hope (botanist)
| John Hope | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
10 May 1725 Edinburgh |
| Died | 10 November 1786 (aged 61) Edinburgh |
| Nationality | Scottish |
| Fields | Botany, medicine |
| Institutions | President, Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh (1784-1786) King's Botanist (1761-86) Professor of Botany, University of Edinburgh |
| Alma mater |
University of Edinburgh University of Paris |
| Author abbrev. (botany) | Hope |
| Children | Thomas Charles Hope |
Professor John Hope FRSE FRS PRCPE (10 May 1725 – 10 November 1786) was a Scottish physician and botanist. Although he did enormous work on plant classification and plant physiology, due to an absence of publications, he is now best known as an early supporter of Carl Linnaeus's system of classification.
In 1783 he was a joint founder of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
In 1784 Hope was elected as president of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh (1784-6).
Born in Edinburgh on 10 May 1725, John Hope was the son of surgeon Robert Hope and Marion Glas, and a grandson of Archibald Hope, Lord Rankeillor, a Senator of the College of Justice who was in turn the son of Sir John Hope, 2nd Baronet.
He was educated at Dalkeith Grammar School, then studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh. He took leave to study botany under Bernard de Jussieu at the University of Paris, but returned to his studies in Scotland, graduating MD from the University of Glasgow in 1750.
For the next decade he practiced medicine, indulging in botany in his spare time. With the death of Charles Alston in 1760, he succeeded him as the 4th Regius Keeper of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh and King's Botanist and as Professor of Botany and Materia Medica at the University of Edinburgh. However Hope saw his responsibility for materia medica as a threat to his work in botany, and therefore arranged for the chair to be split: Hope became Professor of Medicine and Botany, and a separate chair of Materia Medica are created.
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