How can i find who my ancestor david lockhart (botanist) married all i know is h

Question:david lockhart had a son john lockhart who married lydia ada lockhart (nee francis) but i am having trouble going any further back on david lockharts line. As he is famous i wonder if anyone has any idea where i could find a picture of him (he was on ill fated exploration up the congo with tuckey and has a genus of orchids named after him, he was also head of botanical gardens trinidad and worked at kew as head gardener)

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: david lockhart had a son john lockhart who married lydia ada lockhart (nee francis) but i am having trouble going any further back on david lockharts line. As he is famous i wonder if anyone has any idea where i could find a picture of him (he was on ill fated exploration up the congo with tuckey and has a genus of orchids named after him, he was also head of botanical gardens trinidad and worked at kew as head gardener)

I have found this information for you regarding the Archives at Kew, I tried phoning them on your behalf but at the moment it's a recorded message saying there's no one there to take your call, at the moment, here are the contact details for you,

Contacting the Archives
If you have an enquiry about information we might hold, or know that you would like to consult items in our Archives, please contact us. Requests to visit should always be submitted in writing.

The Archives
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
Richmond
Surrey TW9 3AE
UK

Tel: +44 (0)20 8332 5417
Fax: +44 (0)20 8332 5430
Email: archives@kew.org

I think it's well worth giving them a call or even an email. Hope this helps.

He has an entry in the Dictionary of National Biography - look in your library for a copy.

Have you tried the Lockhart clan website?

I have online access to the Dictionary of National Biography as the answerer above suggests, but it doesn't say much that you probably don't already know, cutted and pasted verbatum below:

Lockhart, David (d. 1845), botanist, who was born in Cumberland, was a gardener in the Royal Gardens, Kew. In 1816 he became the assistant of Christian Smith, the naturalist of the Congo expedition under Captain James Kingston Tuckey. Lockhart escaped with his life, but suffered much from the fever that killed Tuckey and most of his crew. Two years later he was put in charge of the Colonial Gardens at Trinidad, then under the supervision of Sir Ralph Woodford; they were much improved by him. He visited England in 1844 with the view of enriching the Trinidad gardens, but he died in 1845 soon after his return to the island. A genus of orchids was named Lockhartia after him by William Jackson Hooker but, being already named, was subsequently merged as Fernandezia.

B. D. Jackson, rev. Giles Hudson

Sources Gardeners' Chronicle, new ser., 24 (1885), 236–7 · Desmond, Botanists, rev. edn, Archives NHM, botanical specimens · RBG Kew, letters · RBG Kew, botanical specimens

The RBG Kew is probably your best starting point for a picture - that or some kind of specialist botanical book or contemporary 19thC who's who. See if they have some kind of archivist and material going back this far, or where it might have been deposited.