Johann Gerhard König

Who was Johann Gerhard König?

Johann Gerhard König was a Baltic German botanist and physician. He was born near Kreutzburg in Polish Livonia, which is now Krustpils in Latvia. He was a private pupil of Carolus Linnaeus in 1757, and lived in Denmark from 1759 to 1767. From 1773 to 1785, he worked as a naturalist for the Nawab of Arcot in India. He was in Tharangambadi with the Danish trade mission from 1773 to 1785.

In 1773, he received the Doctor's degree in absentia from the University of Copenhagen. As naturalist to the Nawab of Arcot he embarked on a voyage to the mountains north of Madras and to Ceylon, a description of which was later published in a Danish scientific journal. In 1778, König was transferred to a post with the British East India Company where he remained until his death, undertaking several scientific journeys and working with notable scientists like William Roxburgh, Johan Christian Fabricius and Sir Joseph Banks. Perhaps the most notable of those journeys was to Thailand and the Malacca Straits in 1778-80. He met Patrick Russell who arrived in India in 1782 at Tranquebar and remained in constant communication.