| AdminHistory | Alexander Anderson FRSE FLS was a Scottish surgeon and botanist, born in 1748 in Aberdeen, Scotland. He studied at the University of Edinburgh and was briefly employed at the Chelsea Physic Garden in London, England, before he emigrated in 1774 to New York, USA.
In 1785, Anderson served as one of the first two superintendent curators of the St Vincent Botanic Gardens, along with George Young. He spent over 25 years supervising the garden and during his tenure the number of species at the garden increased from 348 to over 3,000. Meanwhile he also spent time writing papers, describing the tropical plants and landscapes he found there to be sent back to The Linnean Society for his peers to study, along with botanical drawings he had commissioned.
Also during this time he conducted travels throughout the Guianas, St Vincent, Trinidad and Tobago discovering, for Western natural scientists, more than 100 varieties of Caribbean plants.
He was a correspondent of James Edward Smith and Sir Joseph Banks and was a Fellow of the Linnean Society and the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
He resigned his post in July 1811, and died on 8 September in the same year on St Vincent Island, Caribbean (although the Royal Society of Edinburgh gives his date of death as 10 May 1811). |