Robert Brown (1773–1858)

Scottish botanist. Naturalist to the expedition surveying the coast of Australia, 1801–5; published descriptions of the plants he collected. Librarian to the Linnean Society of London, 1805–22; to Sir Joseph Banks, 1810–20. Continued as curator of Banks’s collections after his death in 1820 and negotiated their transfer to the British Museum in 1827. Keeper of the botanical collections, British Museum, 1827–58. Discoverer of ‘Brownian motion’. FRS 1811.