Talk:William Griffith
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Source conflicts on dates
- Return from Bhutan. The Linnean Society's anniversary notice of 1845, reprinted in the Journals of Travels (1847, p. iii), and the Dictionary of National Biography (1890) say he returned to Calcutta "about the end of June 1839" and joined the Army of the Indus in November "of the same year". Lang (1913) gives June 1838. Long (1979) dates the journey through Bhutan January to May 1838, the mission's own title reads "1837-38", and Griffith's letters in the 1847 notice are dated from Ludhiana on 11 December 1838 and from Kandahar on 2 May 1839. The article follows 1838 for the return and November 1838 for joining the army.
- Peshawar. A letter in the 1847 notice is dated from Peshawar on 17 November 1839; his memorandum on returning from Afghanistan speaks of "my arrival at Peshawur in December 1839". He may have reached the town twice. The article says only that he was at Peshawar in December 1839.
- The Calcutta garden. The 1847 notice: recalled in August 1842; Wallich resumed charge "towards the end of 1844". Lang: from August 1842 to August 1844. The article gives August 1842 and 1844.
- First posting. The 1847 notice: "the coast of Tenasserim". Lang: some months near Madras, then more than two years at Mergui. The article follows Lang, which is consistent with the notice.
- Malacca. The 1847 notice says he arrived at Malacca on 9 January 1845; the Dictionary of National Biography says "a month later" than 11 December 1844. The article gives 9 January.
Collection estimates
The 1847 notice gives Griffith's own estimates by region (Khasi Hills 2,500 species, Tenasserim 2,000, Assam 1,000, Mishmi 1,200, Bhutan 1,700, Calcutta 1,000, Naga Hills to Ava 1,200), excluding Afghanistan, and warns that many forms are common to two or more sets. For Afghanistan his memorandum gives about 1,500 species. Lang gives "more than twelve thousand species" for the whole. For Bhutan alone Long (1979) counts about 1,200 specimens of vascular plants, against the 1,700 species of Griffith's estimate; the two figures count different things.
The sheet and its date
Griffith 4686 (by 1845) (Naturalis U.1198641) carries no collection date. Its label says the Herbarium of the late East India Company distributed it at Kew in 1863–64, and GBIF's event date of 1863 is the distribution year. Griffith died in February 1845, so the sheet was gathered before then; where and when is not on the label beyond East Bengal.
The Itinerary Notes (1848, p. 11) list Cannabis sativa on 11 September 1837 by the Paddo Nullah, on the journey through Bengal towards the Khasi Hills. Long (1979) explains that Griffith's plants carry three sets of numbers and that only the "Itinerary numbers" tie a specimen to his field notes. Number 4686 is not shown to be an Itinerary number, so the sheet cannot be matched to the 1837 entry. Neither the article nor the accession links the two.
Paris sheets numbered 4686
GBIF lists two Cannabis sativa sheets at the Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle with the field number 4686 (October 2026):
- P06884263 (occurrence 731718307): collector "Griffith, W.", locality East Bengal, remark "Donné par la Direction du Jardin Royal de Kew. 1863". It appears to be a duplicate of the Naturalis sheet from the same Kew distribution. The label image has not been read.
- P06884306 (occurrence 731719502): collector "Griffith, J.E.", country Afghanistan, locality "s.loc.", dated 1862–1863. The initials do not match, and the label image has not been read. Griffith collected in Afghanistan in 1839–1840, and the Kew distribution of the Company's herbarium ran in the 1860s, but nothing read so far shows that this sheet is his. The article does not mention it.
Cannabis in Griffith's writings
The OCR text of the Journals of Travels (1847), the Itinerary Notes (1848) and the Bhutan journal in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal (1839) were searched for hemp, Cannabis, gunjah, bhang and churrus. Hits used in the article: Itinerary Notes p. 11 (Paddo Nullah, Bengal); Journals pp. 178 and 187 (Khasi Hills), 214, 231 and 255 (Bhutan), 416 (Gundamuck) and 493 (near Hasan Abdal); Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal 8, pp. 213 and 280 (Bhutan). The Itinerary Notes p. 3 (Hooghly) may list Cannabis sativa too, but the OCR of that page is too broken to read. An entry for Atriplex on the Bhutan route (Journals, p. 223) names "Hempstee of the Booteas"; it is about Atriplex, not hemp. The Notulae and Icones were not searched.
Unconsulted works
- The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography entry (doi:10.1093/odnb/9780192683120.013.11612).
- The original Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London 1: 239–244 (1845); read here in the 1847 reprint.
- "Biographical memoir of the late William Griffith", Madras Journal of Literature and Science 14 (1847).
- David Arnold, The Tropics and the Traveling Gaze (2006).
- Griffith's Notulae ad Plantas Asiaticas, Icones Plantarum Asiaticarum and Palms of British East India.
- Lamond (1970) on his Afghan plants and Taylor (1975) on Himalayan exploration, both cited by Long.
Portrait
The article shows the 1843 portrait as reproduced in Lang's chapter in Makers of British Botany (1913, plate XV, "William Griffith (1843)"), from the Commons scan at 1990 × 2434 pixels. The artist is not named. A smaller engraving of the same portrait, with his signature, appears in the Journals of Travels (1847) and is on Wikimedia Commons as William-Griffith-1845.jpg; its Commons date of about 1845 is a guess. The infobox leads with the specimen sheet, as on the other collector biographies.