Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation

Biographical Note

David Prain (1857–1944) was born to a saddler in Fettercairn, Scotland, on 11 July 1857. He attended the Fettercairn Parish School and the University of Aberdeen, from which he earned his M.A. in 1878. After teaching two years at Ramsgate College, he returned to Aberdeen and moved to the University of Edinburgh, earning his M.D. in 1883 with highest honors. Prain was demonstrator of anatomy at the College of Surgeons in Edinburgh (1882–1883) and at the University of Aberdeen (1883–1884).

While George King (1840–1909) was home on leave from his position as director of the Royal Botanic Garden, Calcutta, he was looking for a medical student with botanical interests to enter the Indian Medical Service. Recommended to King, Prain soon went to India, where he was first attached to various native regiments and then was appointed curator of the Herbarium and Library in 1887. The same year Prain wed Margaret Caird Thomson, daughter of Reverend William Thomson of Belhevie, south of Aberdeen. The Prains had one son, Theodore, who was killed in World War I. When William Thiselton-Dyer (1848–1928) retired in 1898, Prain took his job as director of the Royal Botanic Garden, Calcutta, and the Botanical Survey of India and as 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 was appointed director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, where he remained until 1922.

David Prain worked on the tropical flora of Africa, on the genus Dioscorea with Isaac Henry Burkill (1870–1965) and on Argemone, Cannabis, quinine and others. Prain served as vice-chair and chair of the Council of the School of Tropical Agriculture, chair of the John Innes Horticultural Institution and treasurer of the Royal Society for ten years, was knighted in 1912, and was elected president of the Linnaean Society from 1916 to 1919 (and a fellow from 1888 on). He died at Whyteleaf, Kent, England, on 16 March 1944.

Compiled from

Anonymous. 1912. Lieutenant-Colonel Sir David Prain. Garden (London, 1871–1927) 76: 313–314.

Burkill, I. H. 1944. David Prain (1857–1944). Obit. Not. Fellows Roy. Soc. 4(13): 746–770. [Includes detailed list of Prain's publications.]

Merrill, E. D. 1944. Sir David Prain (1857–1944). Year Book Amer. Philos. Soc. 1944: 379–383.

Nelmes, E. and W. Cuthbertson, comp. [1931.] Major David Prain (1857–). Curtis's Botanical Magazine Dedications, 1827–1927: Portraits and Bibliographical Notes. London: Published for the Royal Horticultural Society by B. Quaritch, Ltd. Pp. 290–292.

Scope and Contents Note

This collection consists mainly of letters Prain received from 1922 to 1924 and miscellaneous related items, some concerning the 1922 death of Isaac Bayley Balfour (1853–1922). Also found here is a copy of a letter (27 February 1922) from Prain to Nathaniel Lord Britton (1859–1934), discussing the nomenclature of various plants. Among the correspondents are Agnes (Balloch) Bayley Balfour (1857–1940), Frederick O. Bower (1855–1948) and Arthur W. Hill (1875–1941).

Finding Aid

A finding aid for this collection is available online.

Other Resources

For information about portraits of and biographical citations for the subject, see the Hunt Institute Archives Register of Botanical Biography and Iconography database.