Richmond William Hullett

Richmond William Hullett was an English botanist, explorer, and school headmaster. He studied mainly in the United Kingdom and Singapore, but has also been to Indonesia and Malaysia.

Early years
Hullett was born November 15, 1843, in the parish Allstree in Derbyshire, England. He was the third son to Reverend and clergyman, John Hullett and his wife Cecilia. He had five brothers and one sister. Along with his siblings, Hullett lived a modestly comfortable and educated life in Allstree.

Education
Often during Hullett's time, families of clergymen were constantly moved around England because of the needs of parishioners in different dioceses. Because of this, a child of a clergyman were usually sent to boarding schools to receive a stable education. Hullett was educated at the Rossall boarding school in Lancashire. At the boarding school, Hullett excelled and was an exceptional member, especially in mathematics. He won a scholarship to enter Trinity College in Cambridge and entered in 1863. In 1866, Hullett graduated as 31st Wrangler, taking a first-class bachelor's degree in mathematical Tripos.

Employment
Following his graduation, Hullett secured a teaching post as assistant master at the Puritan Felsted Grammar School in Essex, England. During Hullett's time at Felsted School as assistant master under leadership of Jamaican-born William Stanford Grignon, he began showing interest in his two lifelong diversified passions: language and botany. In 1871, Hullett left Felsted Grammar School to take up a new senior post as the sixth principal of the Raffles Institution in Singapore.

Headmaster of Raffles Institution
Hullett managed to become the longest serving headmaster of the Raffles Institution, serving from 1871 to 1906. He was respected here, as well; the Hullett Memorial Library, the Hullett house in the house system, and the Hullett block in the Raffles Institution Boarding Complex are all named in honor of Hullett. During his long career at the Raffles Institution, Hullett made a mark on the world and lives today, not with his study of flora from Singapore, Malaysia, Java, Sumatra, Borneo, and China, but by the many words and colloquial expressions used in modern day English and Malay.

The Linnean Society
Because of Hullett's passion for collecting, recording, and discovering new plant species, Hullett was made a Fellow of The Linnean Society (FLS). He remained a member of the Linnean Society of London until 1909.

Straits Philosophical Society
Hullett was a noted member of several learned societies. Among these societies was the elite Straits Philosophical Society found March 5, 1893 to discuss issues on philosophy, theology, history, literature, science, and art.

One of the members of the society, Tan Teck Soon, was an influential Chinese scholar and former pupil of Hullett who contributed to the reformist impulse in the Chinese community in Singapore near the end of te 20th century. Another one of Hullett's pupils, Lim Boon Keng, a Chinese doctor, was also a member of this society.

The Straits branch of the Royal Asiatic Society
Hullett was a good contributor to the Straits branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, which studied particularly on science, literature, and arts of Asia. One of Hullett's good friends and fellow plant collectors, Henry Nicholas Ridley was a council member of the society.

Plants
During breaks in the academic calender for school holidays, Hullett would sometimes go on exciting, sometimes dangerous expeditions to collect and record numbers of exotic plants. In the 1880s and 1890s, Hullett was a prolific collector and intrepid explorer. He often climbed Mount Ophir in Malaysia, where he managed to discover Bauhinia hullettii (a synonym of Bauhinia ferruginea var. ferruginea) and the Busy Lizzie (Impatiens walleriana).

In 1956, several years after Hullett's death, it appears that he was, possibly incorrectly blamed for the unintentional to other areas of Southeast Asia Linaria alpina. He was

Citrus halimii
One of the most significant and curious cases of lost plants is that of the Malaysian citrus tree that was believed to be 12 million years old. Citrus halimii, a close relative to the kumquat and pomelo, was collected December 28, 1902 by William Tatton Egerton. The specimen was passed by Hullett to Nicholas Ridley.

Later years and legacy
In 1887, Hullett published his 'English sentences with equivalents in colloquial Malay'. He retired in 1906 as principal from Raffles and became an inspector of schools in the Straits settlement and a director of public instructions in Singapore. In 1914, he died in Wandsworth, London.

Hullett's legacy has stretched beyond Southeast Asia, with major contributions to Hong Kong, Sumatra, Malaysia, Borneo, and Singapore. Recently, field studies have recovered fern species in Hong Kong which Hullett possibly discovered earlier.