Schomburgk , Sir , Robert Hermann , 1804-1865 , Knight , botanist

Born in Freiburg in Saxony, 1804; educated in Germany; entered business with his uncle and in 1826 went to the USA; West Indies, 1830 and surveyed, at his own cost, the littoral of Anegada, one of the Virgin Islands, 1831; explored the rivers Essequibo (the sources of which he was the first European to reach), Corentyn, and Berbice, and investigated in detail the capabilities of the colony of British Guiana under the direction of the Royal Geographical Society, 1835-1839; commissioner for surveying and marking out the boundaries of British Guiana, 1840-1844; Director of the Barbados General Railway Company; gazetted British consul in Santo Domingo, 1848; made a plenipotentiary to conclude a treaty of amity and commerce between Great Britain and the Dominican Republic,1849; British consul at Bangkok, Siam, 1857; undertook an important journey from Bangkok to Chiengmai, the capital of the tributary Kingdom of Laos, and then across the mountains to Moulmein on the Gulf of Martaban, 1859-1860; retired from the public service, 1864; died, 1865.