Hello and Welcome

This is the first post to a new blog - The World of David Douglas.

Who was David Douglas?  A Scottish plant collector, born in Scone, Perthshire in 1799, who travelled extensively in North America and died in gruesome circumstances in Hawaii in 1834.  Douglas introduced many plant and tree species which are still common today.  Anyone who has a Flowering Currant (Ribes sanguineum) in their garden has a Douglas introduction.  His tree species, including, for example, Sitka Spruce, are a mainstay of the UK's commercial forestry industry.

And who am I?

I am Gordon Mason, a Botanical Historian focusing particularly on David Douglas (1799-1834) and based in Sheffield, UK. Although I spent my working life as a career civil servant in the UK I graduated with an Honours degree (1971) and Doctorate (1975) in botany and experimental plant ecology. But it has been a long time since I was a practising field botanist! I am also a Churchill Fellow (2001) and co-producer of the film Finding David Douglas

So why this blog?  Well, I'm writing this blog as a Commentary.  The Finding David Douglas team in the UK and Portland, Oregon have made a splendid film (link above) and I have recently published two articles in The Plantsman and The Garden - journals of the Royal Horticultural Society - about his death.

I'm now interested in his life - not so much his botanical and plant collecting life as his daily life.  What it was like to be David Douglas in the times and places he lived in.  What he wore, where he lived, what he ate, how he travelled, who he met; that sort of thing.  There will be no photos of him in situ as he died before photography, but there will likely be images of places he went to.

I've not done this before so I'm working through it as best I can.  I tried this first of all on Facebook, as a day-by-day travel through his 1823 expedition.  But Facebook isn't ideal - it's not a good medium for posting comments in a different voice or for simple presentational issues like text formatting, highlights etc.  So this blog is intended as:

• initially, a day-by-day examination, with questions which will seek input and answers, of his first 'proving' expedition to the east coast of the USA in 1823.
• a research tool - it will pose questions about Douglas and seek answers
• a history of the writing process. 

I hope you'll join me on this journey. I'll reply to all comments as soon as I can.

As Douglas himself may have said - Yours Aye!