Nathaniel Wallich

Nathaniel Wallich (1786-1854), like William Carey, was a well-known botanist and horticulturalist. He sent numerous specimens of plants from India back to the Botanic Gardens in Liverpool. Originally from Copenhagen, he went to India in 1807 as surgeon to the Danish Settlement at Serampore. When the East India Company took over Serampore in 1813, Wallich became the surgeon for the Mission Station at which Carey was superintendent. On the death of Dr. William Roxburgh in 1815, Wallich became curator of the Botanic Garden in Calcutta. In 1828 he brought over 8000 specimens of plants with him to England; the next year he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society. He continued to work in India between 1835 and 1842 before returning to England in retirement in 1847. The 1825 Report of the Botanic Garden noted “the kindness and assiduity of our friends and correspondents there [India], amongst whom there are none that have conferred upon us such signal and long continued favours, as the Rev. Dr. Carey, of Serampore, and Dr. Wallich, who may truly be said to have vied with each other, in the joint and friendly interest they have taken in supplying us with every valuable and curious plant which that country, so rich in its vegetable productions, could afford”  (quoted by G. H. Parry, chief librarian, Liverpool Public Libraries, in a letter to S. Pearce Carey, 9 March 1933,  in the S. Pearce Carey Collection, Angus Library, Regent’s Park College, folder marked “Botanical Carey”). See also Stanfield, Handbook and Guide, 46-47; Farrer, William Carey: Missionary and Botanist, 100-108.