Francis Hamilton

Born in Scotland in 1762, Francis Buchanan later became known as Francis Hamilton after inheriting his mother's estate. He studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh and went on to serve with the Bengal Medical Service, building a career that joined medicine with wide-ranging field research.

While in India and nearby regions, he carried out major surveys and collected information on natural history, geography, agriculture, and society. He is especially remembered for his work as a botanist and zoologist, and for the detailed accounts he produced from places including Mysore, Bengal, Bihar, and Nepal.

Hamilton returned to Britain in 1815 because of ill health and later served as Regius Keeper of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. He died in 1829, leaving behind a body of work that continued to matter to historians of science as well as researchers interested in South Asian natural history and exploration.