Nathaniel Wolff Wallich FRS FRSE (28 January 1786 – 28 April 1854) was a surgeon and botanist of Danish origin who worked in India, initially in the Danish settlement near Calcutta and later for the Danish East India Company and the British East India Company. He was involved in the early development of the Calcutta Botanical Garden, describing many new plant species and developing a large herbarium collection which was distributed to collections in Europe. Several of the plants that he collected were named after him. Early life and education Nathaniel Wallich was born in Copenhagen in 1786 as Nathan Wulff Wallich. His father Wulff Lazarus Wallich (1756–1843) was a Sephardic Jewish merchant originally from the Holsatian town Altona near Hamburg, who settled in Copenhagen late in the 18th century. His mother was Hanne née Jacobson (1757–1839). Wallich attended the Royal Academy of Surgeons in Copenhagen, where his professors trained in the botanical science included Erik Viborg, Martin Vahl, Heinrich Christian Friedrich Schumacher and Jens Wilken Hornemann. He obtained the diploma from the Academy in 1806, and at the end of the year was appointed as surgeon in the Danish settlement at Serampore, then known as Frederiksnagore in Bengal. Career Wallich sailed for India in April 1807 via the African cape and arrived at Serampore the following November. However, the Danish alliance with Napoleonic France resulted in many Danish colonies being seized by the British, including the outpost at Frederiksnagore. When the British East India Company took over Frederiksnagore, Wallich was imprisoned, but released on parole in 1809 on the merit of his scholarship. Service in East India Company From August 1814, Wallich became an assistant surgeon in the East India Company's service and resigned as superintendent of the Indian Museum in December 1814. First curator of Indian Museum Wallich proposed the forming of a museum in a letter dated 2 February 1814 to the Council of the Asiatic Society. Wallich offered his services to the society and some items from his own collections for the museum. The society heartily supported the proposal and resolved to set up a museum and to appoint Wallich to be the honorary curator and then superintendent of the Oriental Museum of the Asiatic Society. Dr. Nathaniel Wallich took charge of the museum on 1 June 1814. The museum thus inaugurated, grew rapidly under the guidance of its founder Wallich and private collectors. Most of