Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Don, George (1798-1856)
DON, GEORGE (1798–1856), botanist, born at Doo Hillock, Forfarshire, in 1798, was the eldest son of George Don, for some time curator of the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh, and brother of Professor David Don [q. v.] He came to London as a young man and was employed in the Chelsea garden before his brother David's arrival, but in November 1821 he was despatched to Brazil, the West Indies, and Sierra Leone as a collector to the Royal Horticultural Society. He sailed in the Iphigenia under Captain Sabine, and his new discoveries were described in the ‘Transactions’ of the society by Mr. Joseph Sabine. In 1822 he was made an associate, and in 1831 a fellow of the Linnean Society. He published an ‘Account of several new species … from Sierra Leone’ in the ‘Edinburgh Philosophical Journal’ for 1824, ‘A Monograph of the genus Allium’ in the Wernerian Society's ‘Memoirs’ for 1826 to 1831, and ‘A Review of the genus Combretum’ in the ‘Linnean Transactions’ for 1826. The first supplement to Loudon's ‘Encyclopædia of Plants,’ published in 1829, was revised by Don, and the second edition of the work, issued in 1855, was edited by Mrs. Loudon with his assistance. His chief work was ‘A General System of Gardening and Botany, founded upon Miller's “Gardener's Dictionary,”’ 4 vols. 4to, 1832 to 1838, which is still most useful as a work of reference. He also furnished the Linnæan arrangement to Loudon's ‘Hortus Britannicus’ in 1839. Don died at Bedford Place, Kensington, on 25 Feb. 1856.
[Gent. Mag.; Cottage Gardener, xvi. (1856), 152.]