1. Nathaniel Wallich was involved in the early development of the Calcutta Botanical Garden, describing many new plant species and developing a large herbarium collection which was distributed to collections in Europe.
21 Facts About Nathaniel Wallich
1. 2.
Nathaniel Wallich was born in Copenhagen in 1786 as Nathan Wulff Wallich.
3.
Nathaniel Wallich's father Wulff Lazarus Wallich was a Sephardic Jewish merchant originally from the Holsatian town Altona near Hamburg, who settled in Copenhagen late in the 18th century.
4.
Nathaniel Wallich obtained the diploma from the Academy in 1806, and at the end of the year was appointed as surgeon in the Danish settlement at Serampore, then known as Frederiksnagore in Bengal.
5.
Nathaniel Wallich sailed for India in April 1807 via the African cape and arrived at Serampore the following November.
6.
From August 1814, Nathaniel Wallich became an assistant surgeon in the East India Company's service and resigned as superintendent of the Indian Museum in December 1814.
7.
Nathaniel Wallich proposed the forming of a museum in a letter dated 2 February 1814 to the Council of the Asiatic Society.
8.
Nathaniel Wallich offered his services to the society and some items from his own collections for the museum.
9.
The society heartily supported the proposal and resolved to set up a museum and to appoint Nathaniel Wallich to be the honorary curator and then superintendent of the Oriental Museum of the Asiatic Society.
10.
Dr Nathaniel Wallich took charge of the museum on 1 June 1814.
11.
Nathaniel Wallich was not only the enthusiastic founder and the first curator the Indian Museum, he was one of the largest donors to the museum at its inception.
12.
Out of one hundred seventy four items donated to the museum till 1816, Nathaniel Wallich donated forty-two botanical specimens.
13.
Nathaniel Wallich was temporarily appointed superintendent of the Royal Botanic Garden, Calcutta, and later permanently joined the garden in 1817, and served there until 1846, when he retired from the service.
14.
Nathaniel Wallich published two books, Tentamen Florae Nepalensis Illustratae and Plantae Asiaticae Rariores, and went on numerous expeditions.
15.
Nathaniel Wallich was later appointed assistant to William Roxburgh, the East India Company's botanist in Calcutta.
16.
Nathaniel Wallich was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1822 his proposer being John Yule.
17.
Nathaniel Wallich had suffered deteriorating health for many years, at one time contracting cholera, and he was finally obliged to resign his post in 1846 and retire to London, where he became vice-president of the Linnean Society, of which he had been a fellow since 1818.
18.
Nathaniel Wallich remained in London until his death seven years later.
19.
Nathaniel Wallich died at Gower Street in Bloomsbury on 28 April 1854 aged 68.
20.
Nathaniel Wallich is credited with the authorship of 35 papers, mostly botanical.
21.
Nathaniel Wallich's was the maternal uncle of the Danish zoologist Theodore Cantor.