Nathaniel Wallich
| Nathaniel Wallich | |
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From an old lithograph by T. H. Maguire
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| Born | Nathan ben Wulff 28 January 1786 Copenhagen, Denmark |
| Died | 28 April 1854 (aged 68) London, England |
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| Alma mater | Royal Academy of Surgeons |
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| Author abbrev. (botany) | Wall. |
Nathaniel Wallich FRS (28 January 1786 – 28 April 1854) was a surgeon and botanist of Danish origin who worked in India, initially in the Danish settlement near Calcutta and later for the East India Company. He was involved in the early development of the Calcutta Botanical Garden, describing many new plant species and developing a large herbarium collection which was distributed to collections in Europe. Several of the plants that he collected were named after him.
Nathaniel Wallich was born in Copenhagen in 1786 as Nathan Wulff Wallich. His father Købmand Wulff Lazarus Wallich (1756–1843) was a Jewish merchant who settled in Copenhagen and came from the Holsatian town Altona near Hamburg late in the 18th century. His mother was Hanne née Jacobson (1757–1839). Wallich obtained the diploma of the Royal Academy of Surgeons at Copenhagen and at the end of the year was appointed as Surgeon in the Danish settlement at Serampore, then known as Frederiksnagore in Bengal.
Wallich sailed for India in April 1807 via the African cape and arrived at Serampore the following November. He was an honorary doctor at the University of Copenhagen and member of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters. However, the Danish alliance with Napoleonic France resulted in many Danish colonies being seized by the British, including the outpost at Frederiksnagore. When the British East India Company took over Frederiksnagore, Wallich was imprisoned, but released on parole in 1809 on the merit of his scholarship.
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