Heber Drury

Colonel Heber Drury (4 March 1819 - 30 October 1905[1]) was a British army officer who worked in India and contributed to botany in his spare time.

He published two books and several articles on botany and is commemorated in the name of the only peninsular Indian species of slipper orchid in the genus Paphiopedilum, P. druryi, which he collected in the hills of Agastyamalai.

Educated at Harrow, he became a cadet and joined as an ensign in the Madras Native Infantry in August 1837.

With the outbreak of the Sepoy mutiny, he was placed in the Madras Staff Corps where he commanded the Nair Brigade in Travancore consisting of two infantry regiments, sixty troopers and guns.

He also published some historical letters on the Dutch in Malabar[7] and on hunting in Reminiscences of Life and Sport in Southern India[8] apart from papers in the Madras Journal of Literature and Science.

Part of a sketch by F.C. Lewis depicting Col. Heber Drury standing behind General William Cullen handing a letter of thanks from Queen Victoria to Uthram Thirunal Marthanda Varma on 27 November 1851
Paphiopedilum druryi named by Beddome [ 2 ]