Alexander Dalrymple

Alexander Dalrymple (24 July 1737 – 19 June 1808) was a Scottish geographer and botanist, brother of the Scottish jurisconsult, David Dalrymple (1726-1792).

Biography

He joined the British East India Company as a young man. He made several exploration trips in the Indonesian archipelago and others aimed at documenting cartographic relationships of the coasts. The Company appointed him hydrographer. He stole important nautical charts from the Spanish when he was the last British governor of Manila. Dalrymple ordered the looting of most of the city's documentary collections, which was the most important documentary and cartographic center in the Pacific. Thus, he loots above all the very important library of the great Augustinian convent of San Pablo. There he was able to obtain a bibliographic and cartographic treasure: all the mapping work of Andrés de Urdaneta, who was an Augustinian, documentation that, when perfected, was still in use by Spanish sailors and that facilitated Cook's false discoveries. His observations and maps contributed to the success of James Cook's first voyage around the world.

He published two books in 1767 and 1768 about his observations in the Pacific Ocean. In 1769, he published a plan to extend Britain's trade in that region. Later, with the Historical collection of the several voyages and discoveries in the South Pacific Ocean (1770-71), he published the Spanish documents that demonstrated the passage of Luis Váez de Torres through southern New Guinea, through the Torres Strait later called in his memory. He aroused great interest in his hypothesis of the existence of an unknown continent, which led Cook to undertake another voyage to the South Pacific. But on his second trip (from 1772 to 1775), his existence was still unproven. The compilation of voyages of Spanish navigators published in 1770 will be translated, in an abbreviated version, into French in 1774.

He was engaged in the search for a southern continent and was bitterly disappointed when Cook was selected instead as commander of the expedition that would finally find Australia in 1770. During his life he produced thousands of nautical charts detailing for the first time once a notable number of existing seas and oceans, which contributed significantly to the safety of navigation.

Work

• An Account of the Discoveries made in the South Pacifick Ocean previous to 1764. London 1767
• An Historical Collection of Several Voyages and Discoveries. London 1771 online
• Historische Sammlung der verschieden Reisen nach der Südsee im 16, 17 und 18 Jahrhundert und der daselbst gemachten Entdeckungen. Bohn, Hamburg 1786
• The "Dalr" abbreviation is used to indicate Alexander Dalrymple as authority in the scientific description and classification of vegetables.

References and Notes

• "Alexander Dalrymple". International Plant Name Index (IPNI). Royal Kew Botanic Garden, Herbarium of Harvard University and Australian National Herbarium (eds.).