Richard Henry Beddome

Colonel Richard Henry Beddome (11 May 1830 – 23 February 1911) was a British military officer and naturalist in India, who became chief conservator of the Madras Forest Department. In the mid-19th century, he extensively surveyed several remote and then-unexplored hill ranges in Sri Lanka and south India, including those in the Eastern Ghats such as Yelandur, Kollegal, Shevaroy Hills, Yelagiri, Nallamala Hills, Visakhapatnam hills, and the Western Ghats such as Nilgiri hills, Anaimalai hills, Agasthyamalai Hills and Kudremukh. He described many species of plants, amphibians, and reptiles from southern India and Sri Lanka, and several species from this region described by others bear his name.

Richard was the eldest son of Richard Boswell Brandon Beddome, solicitor, of Clapham Common, S.W. He was educated at Charterhouse School and trained for the legal profession, but preferred to join the East India Company at the age of 18 and joined the 42nd Madras Native Infantry as a cadet at Jabalpur.

He entered the Army, obtaining a direct cadetship in 1848 in the East India Company's service, and sent to India was posted to the 42nd Madras Native Infantry He was with that regiment at Jabalpur in 1856, serving as quartermaster and interpreter of the regiment, and from there he went to Secunderabad. Soon after his arrival at Madras, at the end of 1856, he was appointed to the Madras Forest Department, and never rejoined his regiment.

...
Wikipedia