\"Royal Botanic Gardens\" David Prain Hand Written 2 Page Letter Dated 1934 For Sale

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\"Royal Botanic Gardens\" David Prain Hand Written 2 Page Letter Dated 1934:
$489.99

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for sale a RARE! "Royal Botanic Gardens" David Prain Hand Written 2 Page Letter Dated 1857 – 16 March 1944) was a Scottish botanist

who worked in India at the Calcutta Botanical Garden and went on to become

Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Born to David

Prain, a saddler, and his wife Mary Thomson, in Fettercairn,

Scotland, in 1857, Prain attended the Fettercairn Parish School and then

Aberdeen Grammar School. He then studied Medicine at the University of Aberdeen, where he gained

his M.A. in 1878. After teaching for two years

at Ramsgate College, he returned to Aberdeen and thence to the University of Edinburgh, earning an MB ChM

in 1883 with highest honours. He was demonstrator of anatomy at the College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in

1882 and 1883, and at the University of Aberdeen in 1883 and 1884. In 1884

Prain was recommended to Sir George King (1840–1909), home on

leave from his position as director of the Royal Botanic Garden at Calcutta and

looking for a medical student with botanical interests to enter the Indian Medical Service. Prain duly went to

India as a physician / botanist in the service, and in 1887 was appointed

curator of the Calcutta herbarium. In 1888

he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. His proposers

were Sir Andrew Douglas Maclagan, Argyll

Robertson, Alexander Crum Brown, and Sir William Turner. In 1898

he was promoted to Director of the Royal Botanic

Garden, Calcutta as well as the Botanical Survey of India, and

superintendent of Cinchona Cultivation in Bengal, remaining there until 1905.

From 1898 to 1905 he also served as Professor of Botany at the Medical College of Calcutta. In 1905 he

became Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. ,

a post he held until 1922 when he was succeeded by Sir Arthur William Hill. He was appointed a

Commander of the Order of the Indian Empire (CIE) in

the 1906 Birthday Honours by King Edward VII.

In 1912 he was knighted by King George V.

Perhaps Prain's most difficult time as Director of the Kew gardens was in the

years 1904-1908 when he was one of the lead players in an industrial dispute

which pitted him against his garden staff and the Kew Garden trade union.

Surprisingly his chief adversary was his sub-foreman, William

Purdom, representing a band of young gardener trainees. The dispute

arose because a cohort of these trainees were not fully informed that their

positions were only temporary. In addition to that the gardens industrial

conditions were onerous, with a salary for someone such as Purdom well below

the usual rates. William Purdom was ferocious as the union representative,

bringing the newspapers of the time, the Kew Guild and leading politicians into

the fray. Strikes and go-slows became a heated occurrence with Prain perhaps unfortunately

blamed for an error made by his predecessor. Prain, who came from a humble

background himself, was aware that his workers' grievances were well justified

and went out of his way to find alternative positions in private employ for all

those affected. Purdom appears to have continued the fight on principle and on

a personal basis for another year until Prain finally made it a case that his

combative gardener Purdom had to go, or he himself would. The establishment had

no option but to back the Kew Director. The bizarre and unexpected twist

however came in the final days just before Christmas 1908. Despite being a bane

to the Kew Director, the latter clearly recognized the talents of William

Purdom and recommended his employee as a plant collector for a joint venture by

Harry Veitch and the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University to the northern

provinces of China in 1909. No sooner had Purdom's dismissal been finalized,

than that same establishment arranged for the British administration, including

the Legation in Beijing, to give him all assistance. David Prain was evidently

a very fair and honourable man.  He

served as President of the Linnean Society 1916 to 1919. Prain died at Whyteleafe in Surrey on

16 March 1944. 

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"Royal Botanic Gardens" David Prain Hand Written 2 Page Letter Dated 1934

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