Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 1.djvu/237

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Brandis
217
Brandis

general and the assembly; but at home the humanitarians, unable to realise the urgency of a danger to which themselves and their families had not been exposed, preferred charges of murder against both Nelson and Brand, which were inquired into by the magistrate at Bow Street in February 1867. On 10 April they were brought up for trial at the Old Bailey, when Lord Justice Cockburn ended his very full charge to the grand jury with the statement that, 'if ever there were circumstances which justified the application of martial law, in his judgment they were to be found in this case.' As a result, the grand jury found 'no true bill,' and the prisoners were discharged. If, in addition to the stern resolution which had made his services valuable in Jamaica, Brand had possessed the useful quality of discretion, he would probably have been rewarded for his good and disagreeable services; but he permitted his temper to rule his action and to dictate several ill-judged letters to his principal accusers, who promptly published them, and thus held him up to public opprobrium as a quarrelsome bully. These letters forced the admiralty to the conclusion that he could not be promoted, and thus, though employed for some little time in the command of a gun vessel on the coast of Ireland during the Fenian troubles, he was virtually shelved some time before his retirement with the nominal rank of commander in July 1883. He died at Bath early in June 1901.

[Royal Navy Lists; Annual Registers; Irving, Annals of our Time (see Index, s. w. Brand, Eyre, Nelson, Jamaica); Hamilton Hume, Life of Edward John Eyre, 1867; The Times, 11 June 1901.]

J. K. L.


BRANDIS, Sir DIETRICH (1824–1907), forest administrator and botanist, born at Bonn on 31 Mar. 1824, was eldest son of Christian August Brandis (1790-1867) by his wife Caroline Hausmann, of a good Hanoverian family, who was a pioneer in social work. His father, son of the court physician at Copenhagen, after studying at Göttingen and Kiel, was privatdocent at Copenhagen and Berlin, secretary to the Roman historian Niebuhr, when ambassador at Rome (1816-1821), and from 1822 to his death in 1867 was, save for three years' absence in Greece (1837-9), professor of philosophy at Bonn. Appointed kabinetsrat by Otho, King of Greece, in 1837, the elder Brandis spent that and the two following years with his family at Athens, where the archæologist Ernst Curtius acted as their tutor. Of Dietrich's younger brothers Bernhard (1826-1911), geheimer-sanitätsrat, obtained a reputation as a physician, while Johannes, kabinetsrat, was private secretary to Augusta, the German Empress.

Dietrich, after early education at Bonn, commenced botanical pursuits at Athens, studying under Fraas and accompanying Link on excursions. Returning to Bonn in August 1839, he attended the royal high school and university there. Subsequently he studied botany at Copenhagen under Schouw, at Gottingen under Grisebach and Lantzius-Beninga, and again at Bonn with Treviranus. He became Ph.D. Bonn on 28 Aug. 1848, and privatdocent in 1849. In 1854 he married Rachel, daughter of Joshua Marshman [q. v.], Indian scholar and missionary, and widow of Voigt (1798-1843), Danish surgeon and botanist. This marriage determined his career. His wife's sister was wife of General Sir Henry Havelock [q. v.]. When Pegu in Burma was annexed in 1852, the valuable teak forests were being depleted by unscrupulous adventurers: strong control was essential to their preservation. In 1855 General Havelock was consulted; on his suggestion the governor-general, Lord Dalhousie, put Brandis in charge of the threatened forests on 16 Jan. 1856. Next year his commission was extended to include all Burmese forests. So thoroughly did Brandis perform his task that by 1861 the Burmese forests were saved. His professional duties precluded much scientific study, but his interest in botany was maintained, and on 5 May 1860 he was elected F.L.S. In 1862 Brandis was summoned to Simla to advise the government of India on general forest policy. The problem was difficult because rights of public user everywhere prevailed. Brandis, overcoming official and popular opposition, devised a just and successful system of eliminating or adequately curtailing these rights; he provided for the co-ordination and ultimately for the strengthening of the provincial departments which had control of the forests, and on 1 April 1864 was appointed inspector-general of Indian forests.

During 1863-5 and 1868-70 he toured extensively, establishing sound forest management in Northern India. While on furlough in 1866 he arranged for the continental training of candidates for employment in forestry work.

Invalided on 4 Feb. 1871, Brandis was on duty in England from 12 April 1872 till 22 May 1873, completing 'The Forest Flora of North-west and Central India,'