William Arthur

William Arthur (1680–1716) was a Scottish doctor who served as Regius Keeper of the Royal Botanic Garden and King's Botanist at Edinburgh. Shortly afterwards he was deeply implicated in the Jacobite rising of 1715. He fled to Italy, where he died the following year "from a surfeit of figs."

Early life William was born in Elie, Fifeshire in 1680 to Patrick Arthur of Ballone, a surgeon and apothecary and Commissioner of Supply for Fifeshire. His mother was Margaret Sharp, a relative of Archbishop James Sharp of St. Andrews who had been assassinated in Fife in 1679. William travelled to Utrecht in the early 18th century to study medicine under Dutch physician and "father of physiology", Herman Boerhaave. He graduated as Doctor of Medicine in March 1707 and returned to his native Scotland, initially practising medicine in Elie. chieftain of Clan Gregor, a "gentleman of great courage". a privilege which had been conferred directly from Filippo Gualterio, Cardinal Protector of Scotland. Mar wrote posthumously on Arthur in a letter to a Jacobite agent: