Kew gardener William McIvor was brought out to the Indian Nilgiri Hills in the mid-19th century to create a botanic garden at Ootacamund (now known as Udhagamandalam, Tamil Nadu). McIvor was born in Scotland at Dollar, Clackmannan. He began working at Kew in 1845, where he earned a good reputation. He was especially interested in Hepaticae and published a pocket herbarium of British hepatics in 1847.

When McIvor arrived in India in 1848 he was charged with transforming a patch of jungle into a garden where both British fruits and vegetables and exotic economic plants would thrive, providing a supply of these for European settlers. He was very successful in this aim, with numerous edible crops being established in the gardens within a few years. McIvor also initiated the exchange of plant material with botanic gardens in India, Melbourne and Mauritius.

McIvor's first consignment of cinchona plants was received at Ootacamund in 1861, brought from South America by Clements Markham. None of the first batch survived, much to Markham's disappointment, but McIvor had greater success with later batches of the quinine-yielding trees. McIvor remained at Ootacamund for the rest of his life with his wife, Anne.

Sources:
Anon., 1876, Gardeners' Chronicle, ser. 2, 6: 150
R. Desmond and C. Ellwood, 1994, Dictionary of British and Irish Botanists and Horticulturalists
W.G. McIvor, 1856, Report on the Government Botanical and Horticultural Gardens, Ootacamundm for the year 1854-55
H. Trimen, 1876, Journal of Botany, 14: 224
L. Veale, Transforming the Tropics: The Creation of British Space in India:
www.nottingham.ac.uk/cas/documents/landscapes/lucy20veale20-20transforming20the20tropics.pdf, accessed 20 December 2011.