Richard Eric Holttum


Richard Eric Holttum was an English botanist and author.

Early life

Holttum was born 20 July 1895 in Cambridgeshire, England, to English store owners of Quaker faith. He was educated at Bootham School, York. He studied at the University of Cambridge.

Career

Having received botanical training, Holttum was given the role of assistant director at the Singapore Botanical Gardens in 1922, with the guidance of Isaac Henry Burkill. In Singapore, he performed some exhaustive studies, and was promoted to director in 1925, following the retirement of Burkill. His areas of expertise were the growth and cultivation of orchids. He continued working at the Singapore Botanical Gardens even during the Japanese occupation of the country.
Holttum and Corner were once detained at the internment camp in Singapore. :ja:郡場寛|Dr. Kwan Koriba and Hidezo Tanaka, who took control of the Gardens, pleaded to keep Holttum and Corner at their posts at the Gardens. The Japanese Emperor Hirohito was an orchid enthusiast, so he granted the plea. This action led to the success of the hybridization of Singapore’s national flower.
When the war finished, Holttum and Corner got approved to release :ja:郡場寛|Dr. Kwan Koriba from a prisoner camp. :ja:郡場寛|Dr. Kwan rejected the offer and chose to stay with his fellow soldiers. Holttum praised his act later.
Returning from Great Britain, where he departed to in 1925, Holttum continued his job as the Garden's director, until he moved to the University of Malaya in Singapore to serve as its first Professor of Botany. Holttum penned many books during his tenure at the educational institution, including Gardening at the lowlands of the Malays and Plant Life in Malaya. He was also the first head of department for Botany at the Department of Biological Sciences at the National University of Singapore. He founded the Malayan Orchid Society in 1928. He went back to England later in 1954.
Holttum's area of interest was pteridology, such as that of Malayan ferns.

Death

Spending some time at the Kew Gardens to work, Holttum died 18 September 1990 in Roehampton, London, aged 95.