The news that the Schmidt Memorial on Elliot’s Beach was being restored and the area around it landscaped is welcome indeed. But while this memorial has kept alive for several decades memories of the courage of a young Danish mercantile executive (Miscellany, September 23, 2013), there have been at least two other persons with Danish connections in the city’s past who deserve commemoration for significant contributions they made to Madras — and even to India.

John Goldingham was of Danish descent but was more British than Dane. He was the first official head of the oldest modern observatory in the country and of the oldest modern technical school in Asia, both surviving to this day. But better remembered is what was considered his patron Lord Edward Clive’s folly — or entertainment space. Built by Goldingham to host the Governor’s Council, this Assembly Hall became better known as Banqueting Hall (and should I say ‘Ballroom’?) but today languishes as Rajaji Hall. Making me wonder how this splendid building can be revived and given new life.

Goldingham’s contributions may be remembered by a few, but very, very few outside the scientific community are likely to remember a German who made Denmark his home and later contributed significantly to India. Dr. Johann Gerhard König was a Danish-trained physician who served the Madras Government in the late 18th Century but became better known as ‘The Father of Indian Botany’, with scientific botany in India emerging through his efforts.

Born in what is now Latvia, König moved to Denmark in 1748 to study and became a private pupil of Linnaeus at Uppsala University from 1757. He lived and worked in Denmark till he came out to Tranquebar in 1768 to serve the Danish Halle Mission as its medical officer. Simultaneously, he worked with the Nawab of Arcot as his Naturalist and travelled throughout his domain (virtually what became the Madras Presidency) and Ceylon. In 1778, he was appointed the East India Company’s first Natural Historian /Naturalist/ Botanist and served in that capacity till his death near Vizagapatam in 1785. Amongst those who benefitted from his training them as naturalists were the Rev. Christoph John and Rev. Johann Rottler in Tranquebar and William Roxburgh in Madras. It was Roxburgh who treated him during his last days in what is now Andhra Pradesh when dysentery was felling him. J. König, a name to reckon with in Indian botanical terminology, was responsible for South India being the earliest centre for botanical and zoological research in the country.

Until König came along, plants found in India by the ‘greens’ were sent to Europe to be classified and described by scientists like Linnaeus and others. König introduced the Linnaean rules in India and was soon followed by others. Many of these students of Indian vegetation in the Peninsula and Ceylon, like James Anderson, Francis Hamilton-Buchanan, Roxburgh, Rottler, and John and a few others formed a society to promote botanical studies, exchanged specimens and information on new species collected, and, acting in concert as a society, named them. But as they became more confident of their botanical knowledge, some of them began naming their finds themselves without consultation. All this information was sent by them to European botanists who published the information under the names sent to them or under names they had changed the originals to. Later authors of botanical information, like Edward Balfour and Robert Wight, tended to use the names in general use at the time, but also offered the synonyms that had been earlier used. One of the names listed is Murraya Königii, a species of curry leaves.

Footnote: Searching for material for this column constantly throws up new leads to follow. And while writing today’s piece I came across the name of Dr. Francis Appavoo. Here was an Indian who, as early as the 1860s, was in charge of the Conservator of Forests’ office in Madras. I wonder if anyone can tell me more about him.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Features> MetroPlus / by S. Muthiah / September 28th, 2014