James Herbert Veitch

He was educated at Crawford College, Maidenhead, and in technical subjects in Germany and France, beginning work at the Chelsea, London branch of the family nursery in 1885.

He then visited Johore, before returning to Singapore in February 1892, when he climbed Bukit Timah (the highest point on the island) with Walter Fox, curator of the Gardens.

His travels then took him to Japan, where he met Charles Sprague Sargent of the Arnold Arboretum, and they undertook a joint plant collecting expedition including ascending the Hakkōda Mountains together.

One of the first steps taken by the company, in accordance with the firm’s earlier practice, was to send out Ernest Henry Wilson to China and Tibet to collect plants.

In 1906 Veitch, assisted by various members of his family, prepared for private distribution, under the title of Hortus Veitchii,[3] a sumptuous history of the firm and its collectors, illustrated with portraits.

The book detailed the 1500 plants the business had introduced and their origins and the lengths its collectors went to secure them (the Veitch nurseries were the first to employ professional plant-hunters).

In 2006, Exeter horticulturist Caradoc Doy, an authority on the Veitch Nursery, re-published a facsimile of this seminal work to mark its centenary.

He meticulously sourced a thick, slightly yellowy paper to mirror the Victorian original and even had a special brass stamping plate made to replicate the cover embossing.