John Forbes Royle

John Forbes Royle , British botanist and teacher of materia medica, was born in Kanpur (then Cawnpore) in 1798. He was in charge of the botanical garden at Saharanpur and played a role in the development of economic botany in India. John Forbes Royle was the only son of William Henry Royle and Isabella Forbes.

He was influenced by Anthony Todd Thomson to take an interest in botany and natural history. This led him to give up a military career at Addiscombe and chose to study medicine. 

One of Royle's major interests was in the traditional botanical remedies used by Hindu medical practitioners based on which he would later write On the Antiquity of Hindu Medicine (1837). Royle produced a report on this in 1853 but work began only in 1860, two years after Royle's death at Acton near London on 2 January 1858.