Robert John Harvey Gibson

Prof Robert John Harvey Gibson CBE FRSE FLS DL JP (1860-1929) was a Scottish botanist and academic author. In literature his name often appears as R. J. Harvey-Gibson.

He was born on 2 November 1860 the son of Rev Robert Gibson of the Scottish Episcopal Church. He was educated at Aberdeen Grammar School. He then studied at, consecutively, Aberdeen University, Edinburgh University and the University of Strasbourg.

After first working as a Demonstrator in Botany at Edinburgh University he received a post at University College, Liverpool and thereafter spent most of his working life there, rising to Professor of Botany in 1894. The college later became the University of Liverpool. During his tenure he designed and oversaw the creation of the Hartley Botanical Institute.

In 1885 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh being proposed by William Abbott Herdman, Sir John Murray, James Geikie and Patrick Geddes. He resigned in 1894 but was re-elected in 1914 his proposers being William Abbott Herdman, Frederick Orpen Bower, James Geikie and Cargill Gilston Knott.

He acted as Examiner for the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain.

In the First World War he served as a Lieutenant Colonel in the South African Military Command and received a Military CBE for his services in 1919.

He retired in 1921 and spent time in both Grasmere and Leamington before settling in Glasgow. He died in Glasgow on 3 June 1929.

In 1887 he married Eda Lawrie, daughter of Rev J Lawrie and granddaughter of Adam Black, late Lord Provost of Edinburgh.

The standard author abbreviation Harv.-Gibs. is used to indicate this individual as the author when citing a botanical name.

• A Revised List of Marine Algae (1891)
• Contributions Towards a Knowledge of the Anatomy of the Genus Selaginella (1896)
• Codium (1900)
• Lectures on Plant Physiology (1907)
• The Motor Car: what It Is and How to Drive It (1917)
• Outlines of the History of Botany (1919)
• A Short History of Botany (1926)
• A Textbook of Elementary Biology

• IPNI.  Harv.-Gibs.