Robert Colquhoun (East India Company officer)

For other people named Robert Colquhoun, see Robert Colquhoun (disambiguation).

Sir Robert David Colquhoun, 12th Baronet (15 May 1786 – 2 June 1838) served in the British Indian Army.^[1][2][3] In 1815 in present-day Almora, holding the rank of lieutenant, he organized the Kemaoon Battalion, predecessor of the 3rd Gorkha Rifles, to fight in what became known as the Gurkha War.^[4]

Colquhoun was a plant collector and early patron of the Calcutta Botanical Gardens.^[5][6] The evergreen genus Colquhounia was named in his honor.^[6]

There is a memorial to Colquhoun in the Holy Ghost cemetery in Basingstoke. Its headstone says that he died at sea aboard the ship Reliance.