Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE)

The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE) has been in existence for over 350 years, founded as a physic garden in 1670 by two Edinburgh doctors, Robert Sibbald and Andrew Balfour in the grounds adjoining Holyrood Palace. Over the centuries the garden has moved location several times before the current site was established at Inverleith in the 1820s. 

While books were being bought for use by Garden staff and students from 1766 onwards, it was not until 1912 that the first librarian was appointed. The associated archive collection appears to have begun around the turn of the 20th century as our then Regius Keeper, Isaac Bayley Balfour collated his and the papers of his father, John Hutton Balfour, who also served as Regius Keeper, alongside information he sought out and collected on the garden’s earlier years. 

The archive collection has grown and developed since then, and now contains correspondence, photographic prints and negatives, field books, papers relating to plant collecting, illustrations and society papers, including those of the Botanical Society of Scotland (formerly Edinburgh), the Royal Caledonian Horticultural Society and the Scottish Rock Garden Club. 

The archives can be accessed via our online catalogue (link – https://atom.rbge.org.uk/atom-2/ ), by visiting the RBGE Library (link – https://www.rbge.org.uk/science-and-conservation/library-and-archives/ ) – we are now open to researchers on an appointment basis on Tuesdays and Thursdays, 10am to 4pm. Email library@rbge.org.uk for appointments and/or archives@rbge.org.uk for archival enquiries.