For some years before his death in 1819 Rutherford had been infirm; and speculation as to his successor had been rife. Robert Brown and Sir James Edward Smith were both spoken of. When the vacancy came Robert Brown refused it and Robert Graham, then Professor in the University of Glasgow, was appointed. Robert Graham was born at Stirling 3rd December, 1786, the third son of Dr Robert Graham of Stirling (afterwards Moir of Leckie). After early education at Stirling, Graham was apprenticed in 1804 to Mr Andrew Wood, Surgeon in Edinburgh, and entered on the study of Medicine at the University, graduating M.D. in 1808. Thereafter he studied at St Bartholomew's Hospital in London for a year before settling in Glasgow, where he was also Lecturer in Clinical Medicine. During this period he published a dissertation "On continued Fever." Botany in the University of Glasgow at this time had not reached the dignity of having a Professorship. It was attached to the Chair of Anatomy, but a separate lecturer undertook its teaching. To this lectureship Graham was appointed in succession to Dr Brown. This appointment was the prelude to his election as Professor in 1818 when the Chair of Botany was founded--a foundation which owed much to him through his influence with the Duke of Montrose, then Chancellor of the University, of whose house he was a cadet. One of the first efforts of Graham in his new position was directed to the completion of a scheme that was making for the formation of a Botanic Garden. In this he succeeded, and botanical teaching in Glasgow was thus equipped in 1819. From this sphere in which he had initiated so much, Graham came to Edinburgh in 1820 as Professor of Medicine and Botany and was forced again to take up medical practice and clinical teaching in the Hospital, and in consequence to interest himself in the affairs of the Royal College of Physicians, of which he became President--all this, as in the case of his predecessors, in addition to his botanical work. His first labour in relation to Botany was to transfer the Botanic Garden which Hope had made to a new site--that which it now occupies. Nearly two years were required to carry out the removal, to the success of which the skill of William McNab, the Principal Gardener, contributed greatly. During the whole tenure of his offices Graham devoted himself to the affairs of this Garden, and often in the very practical way of supplying funds from his own resources to supplement the inadequate grants obtained from Government. It gave him the material for the description of many new species which were figured in the _Botanical Magazine_ and other like periodicals. This systematic botanical work was that which Graham cared for most, it was the backbone of his teaching, and all of his scattered papers deal with this aspect of the subject.