Alexander Scott Dickson (1866-1868)
Alexander Scott Dickson was to become one of the most prominent Scottish botanists in the second half of the 19th century and was briefly Professor of Botany at Trinity College for two years, his appointment helping him to secure the position of Regius Professor of Botany at the University of Glasgow, having previously been deputy to the Professor of Botany at the University of Aberdeen from 1862 to 1866.
A familiar theme to the education of botany in the 19th century was the close association with medicine, a relationship maintained in Trinity up to the 1970’s. Alexander was no exception to this being educated at the University of Edinburgh as a student of medicine and embarking on a brief career as physician on graduation in 1860. It would seem that this initial choice of career was in name only. Dickson was a man of independent means, laird to the estates of Hartree and Kilbucho, his family ancestry including a certain John Dickson, Lord of Hartree in 1649. He was educated privately at home before enrolling as a student at Edinburgh, and in 1857 prior to University, had his first botanical manuscript published in Transactions of the Botanical Society of Edinburgh, a journal he continued to submit work to and be published in before his untimely death at the age of 51 on a curling pond in his beloved Hartree. His botanical interests maintained at University (the title of his graduation thesis being ‘The Development of the Flower in Caryophyllaceae’), he published 3 journal articles on the morphology of conifer seeds and flowers throughout his employment as physician till his appointment as deputy to the Professor of Botany at the University of Aberdeen, George Dickie. It was experience in teaching, and his obvious skills as a teacher of Botany, that helped secure him the Chair of Botany at Trinity College after Harvey, albeit for only two years before his return to Scotland as Professor of Botany at Glasgow University. During this two year period Dickson succeeded in publishing five scientific papers on plant anatomy and flower morphology, his main interests being flower morphology, embryogeny and teratology, subjects in which he published widely from. Indeed, Dickson was to become one of the leading developmental botanists of his day, although the bulk of his most important work being produced after his time in Dublin.
Sources:
(Information adapted from Balfour, I.B. 1913. A sketch of the professors of botany in Edinburgh from 1670 until 1887. In: Makers of British Botany, (edited by F.W.Oliver). Cambridge University Press).
Selected Publications relevant to Dickson’s period as Chair of Botany at Trinity College
Dickson, A. 1866. On the Phylloid shoots of Sciadopitys verticillata (Sieb and Zucc). Seeman’s Journal of Botany, 4.
Dickson, A. 1866. On the staminal arrangements in some species of Potentilla and in Nuttalia cerasiformis. Transactions of the Botanical Society of Edinburgh, 8.
Dickson, A. 1866. On abnormal flowers in Tropceolum majus. Transactions of the Botanical Society of Edinburgh, 9.
Dickson, A. 1867. Notice of an abnormal leaf of Primus laurocerasus. Journal of Botany, 5.
Photo: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Dickson_(botanist)