Thomas Hopkirk was born near Glasgow in 1785. He matriculated at Glasgow University in 1800, and later became a botanist. In 1813 he published Flora Glottiana: a catalogue of the indigenous plants on the banks of the River Clyde, and in the neighbourhood of the city of Glasgow, followed in 1817 by Flora Anomoia: a general view of the anomalies in the vegetable kingdom. He prepared many of his own botanical illustrations.
Hopkirk was closely involved in the foundation of the Glasgow Botanic Gardens, to which he donated thousands of plants from his own garden. In 1812 he was elected a fellow of the Linnean Society and he received an honorary degree from Glasgow in 1835. He moved to Ireland after 1830, working with the Irish Ordnance Survey, and he died in Belfast in 1841.
Bibliography
Nicholson, Malcolm, ‘Hopkirk, Thomas (1785-1841)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, Sept 2004; online edn, Oct 2006) http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/13760 [ accessed 25 June 2008]