Edward Rooper

Edward Rooper (25 January 1818 Wick Hall, Furze Hill, Brighton - 11 or 15 November 1854 Inkerman, Crimea) was an English soldier, landscape painter, and botanical collector and illustrator.

He served in South Africa with the Rifle Brigade after landing at Algoa Bay on 20 November 1846 and was promptly posted to the Kei where he took part in the Seventh Xhosa War, mainly in the Amatola Mountains.

During this period he had a chance encounter with the explorer and painter, Thomas Baines, inviting him to his headquarters at Fort Glamorgan to see his own paintings which included many botanical illustrations.

These paintings came to light in 1956 and were purchased by the Botanical Research Institute of Pretoria as a result of efforts by its librarian, Mary Gunn, following a suggestion by Baines' biographer John Peter Richard Wallis.

Of course you will go to the Turkish Bazaar Show in London – as they are not loquacious or energetic it must be almost as good as the real live article – I rather singularly met the other day Hussey Pasha whose acquaintance I made at Yannina years ago.

[4] On occasion Edward sent seed and bulbs from South Africa to his father in Brighton, who in turn forwarded interesting items to William Jackson Hooker at Kew and Thomas Moore at the Chelsea Botanic Garden.