David Prain (1857–1944) was born to a saddler in Fettercairn, Scotland, on 11 July 1857. He attended the Fettercairn Parish School and the University of Aberdeen, from which he earned his M.A. in 1878. After teaching two years at Ramsgate College, he returned to Aberdeen and moved to the University of Edinburgh, earning his M.D. in 1883 with highest honors. Prain was demonstrator of anatomy at the College of Surgeons in Edinburgh (1882–1883) and at the University of Aberdeen (1883–1884).

While George King (1840–1909) was home on leave from his position as director of the Royal Botanic Garden, Calcutta, he was looking for a medical student with botanical interests to enter the Indian Medical Service. Recommended to King, Prain soon went to India, where he was first attached to various native regiments and then was appointed curator of the Herbarium and Library in 1887. The same year Prain wed Margaret Caird Thomson, daughter of Reverend William Thomson of Belhevie, south of Aberdeen. The Prains had one son, Theodore, who was killed in World War I. When William Thiselton-Dyer (1848–1928) retired in 1898, Prain took his job as director of the Royal Botanic Garden, Calcutta, and the Botanical Survey of India and as superintendent of Cinchona Cultivation in Bengal, remaining there until 1905. From 1898 to 1905 he also served as professor of botany at the Medical College of Calcutta. In 1905 he was appointed director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, where he remained until 1922.

Compiled from

Anonymous. 1912. Lieutenant-Colonel Sir David Prain. Garden (London, 1871–1927) 76: 313–314.

Burkill, I. H. 1944. David Prain (1857–1944). Obit. Not. Fellows Roy. Soc. 4(13): 746–770. [Includes detailed list of Prain’s publications.]

Merrill, E. D. 1944. Sir David Prain (1857–1944). Year Book Amer. Philos. Soc. 1944: 379–383.

Nelmes, E. and W. Cuthbertson, comp. [1931.] Major David Prain (1857–). Curtis’s Botanical Magazine Dedications, 1827–1927: Portraits and Bibliographical Notes. London: Published for the Royal Horticultural Society by B. Quaritch, Ltd. Pp. 290–292.