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.

References

1. Asiatic Journal. 1838. part II. page 231.
2. Colbourn, Henry (1839). A Genealogical and Heraldic Dictionary of the Peerage and Baronetage of the British Empire. p. 230. Retrieved 20 December 2018.
3. Family Search. Scotland Births and Baptisms, 1564-1950.
4. "3rd Gorkha Rifles". Lt. Nawang Kapadia. 31 January 2018. Retrieved 20 December 2018.
5. Colquhoun, Sir Robert
6. Smith, Archibald William (1997). A Gardener's Handbook of Plant Names: Their Meanings and Origins. Courier Dover Publications. p. 103. ISBN 978-0-486-29715-6.