Thomas Thomson (1817–78)

Naturalist. MD, Glasgow, 1839. Travelled to India as assistant surgeon to the East India Company. Curator of the Asiatic Society’s museum, Calcutta, 1840. Travelled and was taken prisoner in Afghanistan, 1840–2. Accompanied Joseph Dalton Hooker to the Himalayas, 1850–1, and collaborated with him at Kew on various botanical publications. Superintendent of the Calcutta botanic garden and professor of botany at the Calcutta Medical College from 1855 until his return to England in 1861. FRS 1855.