Robert Fortune

Robert Fortune (16 September 1812 – 13 April 1880) was a Scottish botanist, plant hunter, and traveller, best known for introducing around 250 new ornamental plants, mainly from China, but also Japan, into the gardens of Britain, Australia, and North America. He also played a role in the development of the tea industry in India in the 19th century.

Life

Robert Fortune was born on 16 September 1812 in the small settlement or "fermtoun" of Kelloe in the parish of Edrom, Berwickshire, Scotland.

After completing his apprenticeship, he was employed at Moredun House, just south of Edinburgh, before then moving on to the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. In 1840, he and his family moved to London to take up a position at the Horticultural Society of London's garden at Chiswick. Following the Treaty of Nanking in 1842, in early 1843, he was commissioned by the Horticultural Society to undertake a three-year plant collection expedition to southern China.

His travels resulted in the introduction to Europe, Australia, and North America of many flowers and plants. His most famous accomplishment was the successful introduction, although it was not the first by any means, of Chinese tea plants (Camellia sinensis), along with skilled tea makers, from China to India in 1848 on behalf of the British East India Company. Robert Fortune worked in China for several years in the period from 1843 to 1861.

Similar to other European travellers of the period, such as Walter Medhurst, Fortune disguised himself as a Chinese merchant during several, but not all, of his journeys beyond the newly established treaty port areas. Not only was Fortune's purchase of tea plants reportedly forbidden by the Chinese government of the time, but his travels were also beyond the allowable day's journey from the European treaty ports. Fortune travelled to some areas of China that had seldom been visited by Europeans, including remote areas of Fujian, Guangdong, and Jiangsu provinces.