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Thomas Robertson Sim (25 June 1858 inNorthfield, Aberdeen,Scotland – 23 July 1938 inDurban,Natal) was a botanist, bryologist, botanical artist and Conservator of Forests in Natal, best known for his monumental workThe Forests and Forest Flora of the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope which appeared in 1907. He was the eldest of five children of John Sim (1824–1901), a notedbryologist and Isabella Thomson Robertson (1823-).[1]
AttendedOld Aberdeen grammar school until 1873 and in 1874 was given special tuition atMarischal College,University of Aberdeen. In that same year he served as apprentice gardener in theRoyal Horticultural Society's gardens in Chiswick. In 1878 he was appointed to theRoyal Botanic Gardens at Kew where he received a training in botany under SirJoseph Dalton Hooker. In 1879 he worked for a year in theHarvard University botanic gardens in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Here he was influenced byAsa Gray andGeorge Lincoln Goodale. Subsequently, he worked for a year in the garden of Colonel Peabody of Milton, Massachusetts. Returning to Scotland in 1881, he assisted his father on the farm at Inchmark from 1884–1888.[citation needed]
In 1889 he took up the post of curator of theKing William's Town botanical garden. In September 1894 he became a Government Forester with the Cape Forestry Department and started work at Fort Cunynghame Plantation nearDöhne. Within a few months he was promoted to Superintendent of Plantations in the Eastern Conservancy, and by 1898 to District Forest Officer with headquarters at King William's Town.
In 1902 he established a forest department in Natal, and became its first Conservator of Forests in 1903, with headquarters inPietermaritzburg. In 1907 he travelled to London as representative of the South African Products Exhibition. In 1908 he was asked to visitPortuguese East Africa and later wrote a report on forest utilisation, which appeared asForest Flora and Forest Resources of Portuguese East Africa, which was lavishly illustrated with his own line drawings.
In 1908 he ventured into the commercial world by setting up a nursery in Pietermaritzburg, and advising on tree planting and large-scale afforestation, also venturing into the timber and wattle-growing industries, being a founder member of the Wattle Growers' Association andCedara College of Agriculture.
He was elected F.L.S., F.R.H.S. and F.R.S.S.Afr. and in 1919 received an honorary D.Sc. from theUniversity of South Africa. He was also a constant supporter of the S.Afr.Assoc. for the Adv. of Science, contributing regularly to their journal. Attending one of their meetings in Rhodesia in 1920, he suffered stroke which left him partially paralysed, but despite the handicap, continued with his work. He relinquished all his business interests and devoted all his time to finishing hisopus magnum, a comprehensive study of trees in Southern Africa up to the Zambesi and Cunene Rivers. Death intervened and the unfinished manuscript is still kept at theNational Botanical Research Institute in Pretoria, which also houses his library.
Sim is commemorated inSimia, a genus of liverworts and numerous specific names.
Thomas Robertson Sim should not be confused with the agronomist James Taylor Robertson Sim (1903–1968), who was the son of TR Sim's brother, James Sim, also for many years a forestry officer.
This botanist is denoted by theauthor abbreviationSim whenciting abotanical name.[2]
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